An old favorite!  Requested topic for Kathulos.

Real faith leads to works

Works does not lead to salvation, no matter how hard one works.

Ergo, faith leads to salvation and works
Works does not lead to faith and salvation

Faith = salvation + works

I guess the above would only apply to Christ centered relationship. I suspect there are religious groups who would not agree with that.

I think as people, it's a natural idea to want to believe that you are rewarded or punished based on one's actions. As such, I would say it goes against most people's ideas what the bible says about being rewarded with something you do not deserve.

Also, if someone brings up faith being meaningless without works, please read the context in which the passage in the Bible is referring to. When referenced in context, it's not necessarily talking Salvation.

If works does not lead to salvation, how was Jesus saved?  He didn't need faith since he had a perfect knowledge; therefore, all you have is his works, which were perfect.

The problem is not the works vs. faith argument.  The problem is that there is an unnecessary dichotomy interposed.  If you have faith only, and then go murder people, your faith is pretty meaningless.  If you have faith and do your best to do good in the world, your faith is rewarded.  If you have no faith and go murder people, your lack of faith is meaningless too.  If you have no faith but do your best to do good in the world, then that is the only point where the question really arises.

Faith itself is not a state of being but an action.  You "exercise faith."  How do you exercise faith?  By doing good works with an eye single to the glory of God.  If you are not donig good works with an eye single to the glory of God, you do not truly have "faith" because you are not execising it.

To be more clear, the grace of God/Jesus comes only through "faith" after all you can do ("works").  It is the grace of God which perfects a person and forgives sin since no one is perfect no matter how hard they try.

This is not the same as "salvation" per se.  Salvation is based on baptism, or being "born again" of the water and spirit.  But works is primarily important for those who have already been "saved" by baptism because they can lose their salvation through sin.

"For the wages of sin is death: but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord (Romans 6:23)."

So this tells us that when we sin after being saved/baptized, we can still suffer spiritual death and must partake again of Christ through continued repentance and calling upon him through faith.

Jesus is/was God, he didn't need to be Saved.

I don't think Jesus sinned. He took our punishment for our sins however.

I think there's two different things going on here. We talk about faith vs works, but then the discussion changes to what faith leads to.

When it comes to salvation, faith is the difference. Works are only a result of faith.


Further explain ed through scripture


Faith leads to works. Faith leads to salvation, which is not of works, so that no one can boast.

I was doing a bit more reading on LDS faith, and I do note in several sources of LDS literature, they do make repeated reference to requiring faith and works for salvation.










That last quote seems to address your ideas about sinning and losing salvation from post #6 better than what it says in Romans 6:23.

So I think I do understand why you as a LDs believe the way you do about works and faith and salvation. But when it comes to salvation and what it says in the bible, I think someone who is christian and doesn't use those other books, the implication of faith versus works is much different.

Here's a different perspective.

Faith is meaningless.  Only works matters.

Salvation is likewise meaningless, because salvation refers to things achieved in the next life.  Only things done in this life means anything, which means works.

If you have an extremely pious man, who never does anything to help his fellow man, you have no difference than a worthless layabout.  If you have a a man with no faith, but the most saintly of works, then you have someone truly doing god's work... even without faith.

I think that's a more natural thought of the world. Only what can be physically measured by man is something that people can keep track of.

I think people want to be able to earn their way.

To riff off of GMC, there were times when Mother Teresa seriously questioned the existence of God. Had she died suddenly at that moment, not having true faith and belief in God, what would have happened? She was still working every day to do what she was told is God's will, and she was working towards faith, but at that precise moment, she had none.

In reply to katisara (msg #12):

If She ever believed in Jesus as the way to get to Heaven because he atoned for her sins for her, then she would have went to Heaven at the moment of unbelief.

But how is she different from someone who believed in God as a child, but as an adult became agnostic and simply put no effort into the relationship whatsoever (i.e., neither faith nor works?)

In reply to katisara (msg #14):

That person, however would have very little rewards in Heaven, although he'd still be fortunate enough to get there.

M.T, if she died at the moment of unbelief, would have had decades of devoted service behind her + good works to  go along with that service, and thus earn immense rewards in Heaven for them.

Where are you getting this gradient of rewards in heaven? (And what sort of rewards are you imagining?) I understand the LDS belief in 'levels' of heaven which are closer or further from God, but I'm not familiar with any non-LDS beliefs on the topic.

It comes partially from the book of Revelation;
God will try the works of those who have made it to Heaven by fire. If their works are holy, good, non-selfish, etcetera, they will come out as gold, silver and precious stones, and be eternal rewards.

BUT, if they are bad works, then their deeds will come out as wood, hay and stubble.

There are also "Crowns" that we would receive as rewards in Heaven. Also, I believe that the Parable of the Talents were talking about literal cities we would get in Heaven for our service to him.

In reply to Kathulos (msg #15):

But we don't know how long she doubted god.  Or if she had done so her entire years of service, and simply went through the motions.

And to the hundreds of thousands she helped, it didn't matter.  It wasn't her faith, but her works, that changed the world.

And yet, it wasn't her works that got her to Heaven, so it doesn't matter how long she doubted.

These two segments seem to be in disagreement. She worked whether she doubted or not. But I do wonder, do you think her rewards would have been different if she had worked while in doubt for ten years, rather than one year?

Ah, but I don't accept heaven.

I accept that she changed the world, through works.  Her faith is irrelevant when compared to that fact.  I believe that if there is an afterlife, she deserves a very comfortable place in it-- thanks to her works, not her lack of faith.

If we accept your doctrine about different placements in heaven, then she might end up someplace downwind of the equivalent of the latrines... because she didn't believe.  Somehow, I don't find that at all palatable.

Maybe not. Her faith in Jesus is what got her there, and even if she did doubt, it was probably her belief in Jesus that fueled her good works to start with.

That does not follow.  There are many who believe in Jesus who do outright evil works, and many who do not who have saintly works.

Yes, that's true. However, Salvation is only concurrent in those who have accepted Jesus by trusting in him as their Savior. Once someone accepts Jesus, their conversion is a genuine change of their spiritual nature from being spiritually dead to being spiritually alive. Thus, for those of us who have done well as Christians, it was possibly only because of what God has done for us.

Now, some may be pagan and do outright evil or saintly acts, but the difference is, that the only way to Heaven is by trusting God to get there in the manner he prescribed. :shrug:

Again, I don't accept heaven.

As far as I can tell, those who are "spiritually alive" are the ones who are working to make the world a better place for their fellow humans.  This happens regardless of professed faith.  The reverse is also true: those people who do not work for  a better world in many ways are "spiritually dead", regardless of what they profess.

In fact, if non-christians are capable of doing good acts without the intercession of god, doesn't that mean they're better people in the first place?

That's my point.  If he didn't sin, then he didn't need to be saved.  Therefore, his works were sufficient.  He did not need faith.

Kathulos says Jesus is God and didn't need to be saved.  So for God, faith is not required, but for man faith is required.  I'm not seeing how "being saved" and "having faith" are the one and the same thing.  God did not need faith if he is himself because he can simply go by the old standby:  "I think; therefore, I am."  :)  Did God need to be saved?  That's a different question.  If he didn't sin, he didn't need to be saved because his works were sufficient.

And what exactly is "being saved"?  I hate when people throw that term around because it is not really defined; it's more of a modern day colloquialism.  Different religions have very different interpretations of what being saved means, as well as whether there are different tiers of being saved, as Paul suggests.

If "works are a result of faith" then Jesus never had works at all because he needed no faith.

Regarding Ephesians 2, that is put there to tell us that no one is perfect, so no matter how hard you try, you cannot get into heaven; therefore, grace is needed.  But this does not tell you that works is not important, simply that you should not be prideful because that in itself is a sin.

First, the LDS Church is a Christian church.

Second, the problem with Evangelical churches is often they take Paul too literally.  I heard one pastor state that Paul would never have written some of the epistles had he known they would be dissected and held to so firmly as scripture instead of the writings of a man to various peoples.  (Paul never claimed those were the writings of God.)

Third, the implication of faith versus works in the LDS church is not at all inconsistent with the Bible.  In fact, until recent times where sin became more acceptable in society, sin (i.e., works) was a really big deal--and still is in Catholicism and other traditional Christian religions.  More lately, the Evangelical churches state that sin is not very relevant so long as you have been "saved" by accepting Christ.

I argue that this latter opinion is inconsistent with the Bible and Christian tradition--not just LDS tradition.

Also, from the pure perspective of logic and interpetation, what we do on earth is important beyond just the aspect of having faith and getting baptized.  To say all that is essentially meaningless just doesn't make sense to me.

I will say, however, that if you truly have "faith" you will exercise faith through your works.  As the Bible says, "through their works will ye know them."  Therefore, picking and choosing a few select passages of the Bible to justify a position that what you do on earth is not significant to your salvation is contextually disconcerting and overall contradictory to the Bible...we might as well just throw out the ten commandments too, if that is the case.

The point is this:  you have to do your best to follow Christ, but no matter how hard you try, you will still need his grace for salvation.

From the pure historical perpsective, it was Martin Luther who espoused "sola fide" (faith alone) in breaking off from the Catholic Church.  He based his precepts primarily on Paul's writings in Romans.  Therefore, this idea of faith alone is a relatively new concept and is not really consistent with Catholicism or other early Christian belief systems.

The problem with the "faith alone" doctrine is that Paul doesn't even espouse that idea in Romans:

"But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God; Who will render to every man according to his deeds." (Rom 2:5,6)

"And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meet." (Rom 1:27)

"For circumcision verily profiteth, if thou keep the law: but if thou be a breaker of the law, thy circumcision is made uncircumcision." (Rom 2:25)

"Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law." (Rom 3:31)

See also:

"And if ye call on the Father, who without respect of persons judgeth according to every man's work..." (1 Pet 1:17)

"And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works." (Rev 20:13)

These make clear that God's acceptance of an individual is contingent upon his good works.

Then there is also the similar admonishment in James as in Romans:

"Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone." (James 2:17)

"For there is no respect of persons with God. For as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law: and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law; For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified." (Rom 2:11-13)

Anyway, I think it is clear throughout the Bible that faith alone is insufficient.

Heath, google Walter Martin Forum  . . . You'd like it there. I"m known as ActRaiser there.

From the little I read there, it is based on trying to put down Mormonism.  As such, what I saw wasn't even accurate.  That's the problem with sites dedicated to negativity.  They rarely represent the truth and are often presented by people who have no interest in the truth, very little depth of understanding about the religion they are trying to derail, and are not objective at all.

That's what I saw over there about Mormonism...

Seems slightly contradictory.

If there is no heaven, her works count for nothing in the afterlife.

Then it comes up that she might gain less for her works because of lack of faith. Essentially, she is getting a reward based on her works, and not her faith (or rather her lack of faith).

Essentially, I'm  reading if there is an afterlife, you want to be rewarded for your works if good. But if your faith counts, then it's unfair.

It's like you want the benefits, but none of the penalty. Not an unusual thing, as most of us want what benefits us, but not the responsibility.

It doesn't seem so unreasonable to me. Imagine for instance I'm raised Hindu, and I never really encounter Christianity. However, I'm a genuinely good person, and I strive to help people at every turn. Just because I never accepted Christ, does that mean my work, clear evidence of my being a good and moral person, are worthless? THAT seems contradictory. (LDS at least explains this by offering the opportunity to accept God after death, but I've never heard any other Christian churches accept that.)

You are referring to the idea that there's a christian God, but no hindu gods, and that this hindu is a very good person with lots of good works, but has no faith that Jesus died for him, and as such did not accept Jesus's sacrifice for his sins.

Did I rephrase your idea correctly?

Because I would agree with you that every single other faith or belief does want our actions rewarded, and/or to be rewarded for just being our good selves.

To further state it, I think only the bible would state the idea about faith being the only requirement for salvation. I think that goes against something that a "human nature" might desire for an afterlife.

The contradictory part I referred to is that it was said they do not believe in heaven, and as such feel faith is valueless. However, it was added if there is a heaven, then faith still doesn't matter as much as works.

The problem being if there is a heaven, then faith does matter, right?

I think this is one of those agree to disagree moments. When you say christian, and I say christian, we mean different things.

People say a lot of things, and being a pastor doesn't really mean they are qualified to determine what Paul would or wouldn't have written if Paul knew what would be recorded.

Paul wouldn't need to claim it was the word of God to make it the word of God.

So respectfully, I don't see this as a problem to Evangelical churches or any church for that matter to read the bible and see what it speaks of faith and salvation.

I have already shown references from the bible showing where it specifies that works are not important, so that none can boast.

I would agree that ideas on salvation, works and faith have changed over the years.

However, I think due to combining history, and research of the texts have left us with a better understanding of what actually happened, when compared to what research and understanding they might have had 100 or 200 or more years ago. I think it reasonable that views change as more information comes to light, and not inconsistent.



I didn't say meaningless. We're talking what is required for salvation in this instance.



Out of context. You took a quote, such as knowing a christian through their works, as a quote to support salvation through works. When that quote was referring how to recognize a christian. It wasn't how to recognize salvation.

I agree that the grace of God allows for salvation.

You're discussing a hypothetical and a position.

My position is that heaven probably doesn't exist, not in the christian sense of the word, so faith is irrelevant.  Only works matters.

The hypothetical is that heaven does exist, and only faith matters.  But even if that's the case, heaven is by definition the afterlife, and only actions in this life get you into heaven.  That means faith still doesn't matter, since merely having faith is utterly useless if it doesn't translate into visible change, into actions.

In either case, faith really doesn't matter.  It's a form of mental masturbation.  Doing something to change the world-- tangible works, to make the world a better place-- are all that really matter.

Now that's just innapropriate.

What, that it's by works, and not faith, that the world will be saved?  Sorry, it's my position and I'm sticking to it.

Ahem.

"Mental masturbation" is a common term used in intellectual debate for a line of thinking that's self-congratulatory in nature.  I don't apologize for using intellectual terms, and I wonder why you perceived it as sexual?

I think why he would perceive it as sexual is pretty straightforward :P However, I'm also familiar with the phrase used in that context; it's any action you do on your own, that makes you feel better, but doesn't actually make you a better person or help the world around you. And indeed, I can imagine the monk on the mountaintop exemplifies this; he's separated himself from the world, he no longer contributes to those around him who are suffering. He spends all his time in his own headspace. Whether God is real and in a relationship with him or not, the fact that he is sitting their basking in his image of God rather than working God's work would seem to be a selfish position.

I understand that you feel the christian view is incorrect.

This confuses me. If you say we're talking about the idea that heaven exists and faith matters, you still say that can't be because only works count.

It's contradictory.

Maybe you could rephrase to to show the situation as you describe it. You started off by saying the hypothetical is that heaven does exist, and only faith matters, but you reversed your statements without explaining anything other than you don't believe it, so it can't be possible.

Now you're confusing me.

The point of the hypothetical is to entertain the possibility you're correct.  A bit of a straw man argument, I confess.  It's meant to illustrate the contradiction in *your* argument, that only faith matters.  You assume that heaven exists, I do not.

Remember the old John Lennon song: "Imagine there's no heaven... isn't hard to do."  That's the crux of my argument.  Only doing good things matters.

To throw a wee spanner in the works, lets consider the "faith only" position with some examples.

Fred Phelps, the guy with the "god hates fags" webpage and who protests at soldiers funerals.  I'm pretty sure everyone here thinks he's a pretty unpleasant guy.  But at the same time, I don't think anyone can really question his faith.  He believes he's doing God's work, and he's 100% convinced Jesus died for his sins.  He's got plenty of ideas that most christians think are contrary to the bible, but you can't really doubt that he believes.

Mother Teressa, as Katisara mentioned, or perhaps Ghandi.  Someone who clearly worked hard for others, and was a "good person" by any human standard, but who may not have believed in the whole Jesus story.

According to the "faith alone" theory, God would rather hang out with Fred Phelps than a doubtful mother Teressa or a Ghandi.  Not only would he rather not have Ghandi or mother Teressa around, He would prefer that they spend eternity in suffering worse than any torture ever experienced on earth.  If that doesn't cause at least some discomfort to you, I have a very hard time relating. Forgiving Fred Phelps I can handle, but not forgiving Ghandi or Mother Teressa at the same time, to me seems perverse.

I have to agree with Tycho.

BTW, I've read the Mother Teresa statements.  What she was saying, as I recall, is that she has days when she questions her faith, but that she has to do God's work that much more to gain her faith back.

In other words, she seems to agree that faith is an action...i.e., doing God's work.  In some conventional usage, there is a distinction made between "faith works" and "nonfaith works."  To have "faith," you must do faith works, meaning that your faith is demonstrated and built up by using it to do God's work and be righteous.  Nonfaith works would be the nonbelieve doing good deeds.  Then there are the faithful who do not do faith works, and they are not truly "faithful" since they are not exercising their faith by doing God's work.

I think this is consistent with the Catholic beliefs, ancient Christians, as well as LDS and other beliefs.  It is merely those following Martin Luther's teachings who tend to reject this kind of thinking.

In this sense, since Joseph Smith was brought up earlier, it would be interesting to compare Joseph Smith to Martin Luther.

Both said that the current churches were not doing things properly and had deviated from the right way.

Martin Luther created a new branch that spouted numerous religions (Protestantism).  Joseph Smith sought (and according to the LDS, received) revelation from God to found the Church of Christ -- later changed to the Community of Christ and finally to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints to distinguish it from other churches with similar names.

Martin Luther's later beliefs are claimed to be his own interpretation of the scripture without claim to divine intervention; Joseph Smith's beliefs are claimed to be based on revelation from God to reestablish Christ's church as it was with the early Christian churches and to make way for continuing revelation.

Therefore, Joseph Smith was establishing a religion based on the original Christianity through revelation and Martin Luther was trying to take the Catholic beliefs back in time to a few hundred years A.D. and instill his own interpretations.  The Catholic Church was established through the Council of Nicea a few hundred years A.D. and has undergone a number of changes throughout the centuries but does make claim to divinity and is thus justified in change, just like the LDS church.  The Protestant churches have various interpretations and changes because they cling to the belief that only faith is really necessary.

Okay, he was a pastor who was a scholar and a teacher.  It was a show on the Discovery Channel looking at the writings of Paul.  My point is simply to show that I am not presenting a solely LDS point of view.  It's also pretty apparent to any casual reader.

Neither would I, but that doesn't mean everything I say, or he said, is the Word of God.

That's not the problem.  The problem is when every word is dissected so much that the big picture gets lost, such as who he was talking to, what was the context, and how did he intend the writing to be taken.

Okay, but I showed many more Biblical quotes saying that works is necessary.  The point of faith vs. works is that you can't boast in your works as saving you because even after you do your best, you still need faith and grace.  So works is important.

As we would say in logic, works is necessary but not sufficient.


That's not how I used it.  You won't know a Christian if they don't have works, so such a person is not truly a Christian at all.

How does the verse go?  "Thou shalt know them by their fruits."  It's the standard: you won't know if someone is good by watching what they believe, but rather by what they do.  So, the bible makes it clear that works are more important than faith, since that's the test of a good person.

I have to come back to some posts, but the quick response about knowing them from their fruits wasn't about salvation.

Would it seem reasonable that the context of knowing someone by their fruits was the ability to tell if they were christian?



Reading the verses, what do you think the context is? You can tell if the prophet is false or true by their faults, agree or disagree?

Is anyone using this verse to determine works can show if they have salvation? If so, how or why are you using that context?

Still confused, you allowed for the possibility that heaven existed, but discounted the possibility faith is important because why?

Just to be clear, you stated that if heaven existed, and faith did matter, then you concluded faith would not matter because you don't feel heaven exists. That's a contradictory statement, isn't it? Did I summarize your position incorrectly? I'm fine in starting over, because I still don't understand your explanation for the contradiction.


I don't have any problems understanding you do not feel heaven exists and that christianity is incorrect in their views.

To be clear, you are asking if someone is genuine in their belief, and that all views even if not correct, as long as they are believed, they are considered good?

Like if I really believed that it was good to eat unicorns and poop out rainbows to get to heaven, that is the same as really believing that it is required to feed the hungry to get to heaven?

I know, but an opinion from you and this other guy doesn't eliminate God's word through the letters Paul wrote.

I don't really think there's any disagreement on this. I'm just clarifying it is God's word, and it was kept despite what Paul or anyone else says.

I agree, but the things where it does say Faith alone is enough for salvation is part of God's word.
I did point out that LDS do use other books to come to these ideas. For example, you as a LDS believe that the bible is correct only when given a view that is consistent with LDS beliefs. Is that agreeable?

As a christian, I don't feel the big picture is lost, since the bible and archeology has literally tens of thousands of documents and articles to compare to.
I disagree that you did. But more importantly, I think everyone knows you can't be both left and right at the same time. Either you can have salvation with faith alone, or you cannot. Since the bible does say you can have salvation by faith alone, then clearly it cannot be discounted.

I agree that is logical. It is actually going against the worldly ways to say otherwise.

</quote> You took a quote about knowing if a person was a true christian, and said works is significant to salvation. You even pointed out it being wrong to cherry pick my verses to mean something else.

I was just pointing out the verse didn't apply to salvation, and the context was wrong when your subject was works and salvation.

No.  I'm saying that even if heaven and christianity were true, faith would still not matter.  Again, jesus said: "Thou shalt know them by their fruits."  A good nonbeliever doing good works will have good fruits, while a faithful man with no works will have no fruit at all.

Your view is the contradiction.  You say only faith matters, and works are irrelevant.  But there are numerous places in the christian bible that clearly state the opposite.

Maybe look back at post 47. The context of that verse was about determining a true prophet from a false prophet.

Agree disagree?


I don't think I'll worry about the contradiction anymore. I had some questions from earlier, and since they aren't being brought up, I'm guessing this isn't something open to discussion.

With the bible and verses about salvation, you could show me some where it clearly states the opposite of faith leading to salvation.

Actually, the context of the verse was determining a false teacher or minister.  Since there is an explicit commandment that all christians are to be teachers and ministers, it applies to just about everyone.  In fact, there's a popular church based on just that idea.

I'll also refer you to the parable of the good Samaritan.  He was good because of works, not faith.

As for more specific verses, Heath and others have done a good enough job of stomping your argument into the ground that I feel there's little more I need to add.  If you want to argue that neither is sufficient by itself, I'll entertain that one; but then we'll still be faced with the question of which faith produces superior works.

Why do you say false teacher or minister when it says prophet in the bible?

But regardless, why did you bring up how to determine a false teacher as a way to determine salvation?


Go on, tell me why you think that man did works and had no faith?

Well, respectfully, we have to agree to disagree that the bible has been squashed on this issue. Clearly there are a lot of people who feel salvation is through Faith. Heath mentioned Evangelical christians as one group that might have this belief.

Why would such a large group of many different denominations come to a conclusion that differs from catholic, or LDS, or Islam? Would it seem reasonable that things other than the bible are used for support of that conclusion, or it unreasonable to say that they have other sources to support that stance?

Because, if you understand Hebrew, the word "prophet" was more or less synonomous with religious teacher.  Here, look it up for yourself at Dictionary.com: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/prophet


Because he was a *Samaritan*, not a Jew.  There is a difference, you know. The parable was meant to illustrate that he did good works not because he had the same faith, but rather despite it.


And as we step away from one faith and into many, I'll point out that not every religion believes in salvation.  Numerically speaking, they're actually in a slight minority IIRC.  Hinduism and Buddhism strongly believe in good works over simple piety, so I'd say that there isn't the support you claim.

You're also conflating christian denominations with Islam, when they're separate religions; and you accused Mormonism of not being a christian denomination earlier.  There's another contradiction for you.

In the end, we are judged by our works, not our faith.  You may have the strongest faith in the world, the "faith that moves mountains"; but like Katisara's monk on the mountain example, unless it's put into action it's so much mental masturbation.

No.


No.  Under the "faith alone" doctrine, only one belief matters at all.  If you answer yes to the "do you believe Jesus died for your sins, and do you accept that sacrifice" question, then you're in.  Doesn't matter what you believe about anything else, right or wrong.  If you believe that and think you need to eat unicorns and poop rainbows to grow a beard, you're in.  If you believe it, and also believe that 2+2=7 you're in.  All your other beliefs, whether correct or not, are irrelevant to your salvation.  It's just one question.  And on that one question, Fred Phelps gets into heaven, even though he believes plenty of other stuff that most people think contradict the bible.  Even though he does lots of things that most people think contradict the bible.  He gets into heaven by his faith in Jesus' sacrifice, and that's all.  Nothing else is considered.  Likewise for Ghandi.  He's a non-christian, so he doesn't get in.  His other beliefs, no matter how much they might agree with Jesus' teaching, never get considered.  His actions, no matter how in line with Jesus' teachings, never get considered.  That's what "faith alone" means.  And as I said before, the implication is that God thinks its best if Ghandi spend eternity in torment, while Fred Phelps gets eternity in paradise.  That doesn't sound like Justice or Mercy to me, it sounds like cronyism.

To shake things up a bit further:

I think we all agree that our actions are under our own control.  And thus, our works are under our own control.  Not much controversy there, I think.

If I say that our beliefs are not under our control, I imagine I'll get some strong disagreement.  But I would say this is an easily testable hypothesis.  If our beliefs are under our own control, we can change them at will.  If you believe that our beliefs are under our own control, try it.  Pick something you believe very strongly, and simply will yourself into believing it's not true.  Convince yourself that gravity is going to stop working, say.  Or convince yourself that your religion is false (don't worry, you can change right back afterwards).  Or convince yourself that 2+2=7.  If belief is under your control, all it takes to do these things is an act of will, a simple decision.  If you can't do it (and I certainly can't), that would seem to imply that belief isn't under your own control.

If belief isn't under our own control, and works are, what does that say about the faith and works debate?

That particular line is, but the metaphor is used repetitively. Barren trees being cut back, vineyards which produce or don't, servants investing talents. It's pretty clear Jesus is saying "you'll be judged on production".

I think you missed the question I posted to you about even if a reference to a teacher, who did you take a verse about determining a false prophet from a true prophet as a way to tell for salvation?

Who was a Samaritan? It was a parable, the Samaritan would not even exist. The context was to determine your neighbor, not to show a character had salvation through their works.

I'm claiming it seems there are other sources than just the bible used for these stances, since all of the sources you and I both mentioned have additional articles other than the bible which state the importance of works.

Still, the question I posed was does it seem reasonable that these other articles do influence the way they look at works?

I was asking about the differences between the way they look at salvation, and how it's different than an evangelical group.

How does that contradict anything I said/posted?



I guess that is why we are discussing it, and that people come to different conclusions.

To be short, if you earlier asked if they get to heaven because of their faith, and now you're saying they don't get to heaven because their faith was lacking according to the christian bible, doesn't that answer your question?


Your next question is about Fred Phelps, and I am wondering why you think he is saved, and Ghandi is not?

That you are probably asking the wrong question.

Using worldly logic to determine spiritual progression?

I wasn't asking if they get to heaven based on their faith.  That's the "faith alone" doctrine.  I'm saying, "if we accept that this is true, what are the consequences?"  And I pointed out that one of the consequences would be that Fred Phelps gets into heaven (because he has the required faith), but Ghandi, or a doubtful mother Teressa doesn't (because they don't).  Not only do they not get into heaven, they get tortured for eternity (or experience something worse than torture, if you don't like that wording).  I'm suggesting that should make us a little uncomfortable.


Under the "faith alone" doctrine, Fred Phelps is saved because he believes in Jesus and accepts him as a sacrifice for his (Fred's) sins.  All the other kooky stuff he believes and does don't fit into it.  Ghandi, on the other hand, was Hindu, so doesn't get into heaven under the "faith alone" doctrine.

You seem to doubt this from your question, but just to avoid getting stuck in a side-debate, let's just go straight to the question: "would a God that prefers to hang out with Fred Phelps and send Ghandi to eternal torture give you any feelings of uneasiness?"

[Edited per mod request]  I don't believe in salvation, remember?  I believe that this is the test for discovering if someone is a good person.  A good person deserves a better afterlife, regardless of what they believe.


{Edited per mod request]  Samaritans are real people, they actually exist.  A Samaritan is a member of the Samar tribes, who also have a monotheistic faith but do not worship as the Jews do.

The context of the parable is to show that good men exist no matter what their faith is.


Other than futilely trying to defend your position, I have no idea what you're asking anymore.  Please clarify.
This message was last edited by the player at 22:28, Fri 14 Oct 2011.

Moderator Post

GMC, you're being unnecessarily aggressive in your last post.  No need for calling anyone names"  Those are personal attacks, and don't move the discussion forward.  Please modify your post, and refrain from using such attacks in the future.

EDIT--thanks for changing the post.
This message was last edited by the GM at 08:26, Sun 16 Oct 2011.

I have to take issue with this statement.  In fact, the argument has three alternatives, and you engage in a logical fallacy by presuming there is only one:

1) Are these other religions using something beyond the Bible for their interpretation (which could be other books, sources, personal prayer or revelation, etc.) (This it TitL's position.)

2) Are the Evangelicals (or other people relying only on faith and not works) ignoring parts of the Bible to support their view?  (This is my position and why I posted Biblical passages showing that the Bible supports works and faith combined.)

3) Is the text ambiguous enough that two different interpretations are reasonable?  (I'm sure many would also argue this.)

There may be a fourth or fifth, but those were the three I came up with.

Was thinking about this reply a bit more.  At first it seemed like just a "well if you don't see it my way, you're doing it wrong" comment, but I've been trying to figure out if there's more to it than that.

What do you mean I'm "asking the wrong question?"  Is "do we have any control over being saved?" not a legitimate question to ask?  Is it out of bounds for some reason?

You seem to imply that using "worldly" logic is inappropriate here.  Does mean you're saying "sure, it's illogical, but that's okay, God can be illogical if He wants?"  Are you saying there's some other type of logic I should be using instead of the "worldly" type you mention?  What do you feel we should be using to "determine spiritual progression?"  And what do you mean by "determine spiritual progression" exactly.  I was coming at it from a "does the system proposed make any sense" angle.  Do you feel that's not the proper angle to approach it?

All that said, do you agree with the premise laid out in the post your replied to?  That we can control our actions, but our beliefs cannot be change simply by willing them to change?

I'll address Fred Phelps and Ghandi in the next quote.

It's assuming that it's unfair that only some people gain salvation, and not everyone. Another way to think about it is this. Everyone has sinned. All sinners go to hell. Jesus paid the price of sin for anyone who accepts Him. So for those who choose to, they can accept the gift, or not.

So rather than think it unfair for everyone not going to heaven, rejoice for all those who will get there and shouldn't have been in the first place without the gift being made available.


Why do you feel Fred Phelps is a christian? Heath said he is a christian too. Do you feel that if christianity is true, then anyone who claims christianity, but acts in any way they want is saved? They can be as honest or dishonest, rescue people or kill people as they choose?

Personally, I think it's a red herring, as I don't believe you would have brought up Fred Phelps if you thought him a christian for real. His name was chosen specifically because of his non christian actions. As such, if someone is not acting christian, we recognize there's a problem going on.

I think that's the wrong question. I think God prefers everyone to choose Him. I believe that everyone who faces God will agree with His judgement, as it is a righteous one.

For example, if you were to face a judge for murder, and the judge sentences you to jail, you would accept your actions as wrong, ans the judge merely sentencing you for your actions. When you face God, you will know and agree with God's judgement.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but yes.  Fred Phelps is not only a christian, but he has unquestionable fervor in what he does.  In other words, he has extremist levels of faith, and believes he's doing god's work.  In his mind, he's a christian and you are not.

Now, how can we objectively decide who's a christian and who's not?  Salvation?  Even you admit that comes from god deciding, and not us mere mortals.  Faith?  Sorry, but Phelps beats you out on that one.  In the end, works is all we have left.

And that assumes we even agree that there is a god, or that salvation even exists.  Remember, I don't accept that.  Saying "It's all up to a god you don't believe in" is just plain silly to me.  It'd be like saying all you christians will be judged by Buddha.  And before you go back to your judge analogy, I should point out that not only are many trials determined by a jury of your peers, judges are imperfect as well.

It's less an issue of fairness, in my view, as generally setting up something wrong and arbitrary.  I could go around stabbing people unless they gave me $100, and say "instead of thinking it's unfair I stabbed someone, rejoice for all those who didn't get stabbed even though I could have stabbed them!"  Surely you wouldn't accept such a statement (I hope!), but the situation you describe is actually worse, because going to hell is infinitely worse than being stabbed!

The issue is partially the initial premise (you accept that everyone 'should' be sent to hell to be tortured for eternity, whereas I find that completely sadistic, and reject the premise as something only an evil being would implement), and partially the implication (that God cares more about you believing the right thing than doing the right thing, which seems bizarre at best to me).


Well, he certainly acts like he believes it.  He has some kooky views, true, but I see no reason to doubt he thinks he's doing God's will.


That's sort of the "faith alone" doctrine.  What you do doesn't matter, only what you believe.  If you accept Jesus as a sacrifice for your sins, you get into heaven.  That you murdered someone gets forgiven, that you protested at soldiers funerals gets forgiven, that you've done any number of horrible things gets forgiven, as long as you accept Jesus.  That's the "faith alone" doctrine.  It's not "claiming" christianity that matter, but believing it.  And I see no real reason to doubt that Fred Phelps really believes in what he's doing.  He's a nut, sure, but I think he's a sincere nut, not just pretending.


You're part right, and part wrong.  He was indeed chosen for his non-christian actions (or, perhaps "works" would be a better term), but I do really think him a christian for real.  That's why he was chosen, because he has faith but not works (in fairly extreme measures in both cases).  He's not "acting christian" but is "believing christian," if you will.  I chose him to illustrate an extreme example of having faith but not works, and hence someone who gets in to heaven by the "faith alone" doctrine.  The other examples were chosen to be the opposite:  having works but not faith, and hence sent to hell under the "faith alone" doctrine.




Right question or wrong, it'd be nice if you could answer it. ;)  Seriously, though, "would a God that prefers to hang out with Fred Phelps and send Ghandi to eternal torture give you any feelings of uneasiness?"  Even if you don't think that's the case of the God you believe in, it'd at least be good to know how you'd view such a god, to see if we share the same basic ideas about what would make a god good or not.

[emphasis added by Tycho]
You use the word "action" here, but are saying that it's faith rather than actions (ie, works) that matter when you get judged.  When we're being judged, what's actually getting weighed up isn't what we've done (remember, everyone, no matter what they've done goes to hell by default under this model.  No need to look at their actions), but what we believe.  And, as I've said already, that's not something we have control over.  You saying "you'll agree with the judgement" is sort of like me saying "you'll agree that I'm right later."  Whether it's true or not, it doesn't really add anything to the discussion because neither of us can prove it one way or the other.  We may as well just say "I'm right!" "no, I'm right!" if we're just going to assert our own rightness as part of our argument.

I would have to agree Fred Phelps is a Christian (at least for this discussion). The bible makes it clear that anyone who is baptized will be reborn, and I think it reasonable to assume Fred was baptized. Unless he has since rejected Jesus (which I think would be an unreasonable assumption. If he has rejected Jesus, it probably wasn't intentional, and I don't know that you can unintentionally reject Jesus).

I also suspect Fred may be psychologically disturbed and in need of medical help, and I don't have a problem with crazy people being blessed, fixed, and getting a free pass. However, for the sake of this discussion, there are plenty of non-crazy, but very mean Christians out there for whom this would not apply.

Ultimately, I really don't have a problem with mean Christians going to heaven. That whole deal is between them and God. My issue is with paradigm of virtue non-Christians going to Hell. Again to look at Ghandi, this is a man who said he would rather starve to death than see a person who is oppressing his country die. If that's not a Christian act, I don't know what is. And he was certainly exposed to Christianity and had a chance to reject it. Yet I am to believe that a man responsible for saving hundreds of millions from oppression, who defined restraint and self-sacrifice, is going to burn in Hell 'just because' and this is somehow justice?

So you didn't answer the question I posted to you about the context of the verse because you don't believe in salvation, and that's why you took a quote about a false prophet and used it towards salvation?

Did I misread that?

I understand samaritans are real in history. But the parable was a story to help understand who your neighbor was.

That doesn't seem to make much sense. Why would the bible argue for how good men are without faith?

Again, I say the context was how to determine who your neighbor is.



I'm claiming it seems there are other sources than just the bible used for these stances, since all of the sources you and I both mentioned have additional articles other than the bible which state the importance of works.

Still, the question I posed was does it seem reasonable that these other articles do influence the way they look at works?

This point remains regardless of any other stance, since all of them have specific statements, or articles that state clearly about the role of works in salvation. I posed the question about to point out how reasonable these articles influence the reading of the bible. It should seem fairly obvious they should influence reading the bible.

That's a fair question, we can look at the context verse by verse.

Keep in mind, we know there are verses that state specifically that salvation comes through faith. In the case of context, in the case of LDS, the bible is actually mistaken, or misread when it says that, right?

I'd like to see a response to the following verse, and why the LDS feel this passage is wrong, mistaken or misread?

Not without faith, but the good Samaritan was a good man despite his faith. And arguably, faith in nothing in particular is still faith.


Like which ones?  You keep misquoting the bible, then referring to these mysterious other sources.


I have absolutely no idea what rhetorical trap you're trying to set, so I'm just going to call a Non Sequitur Fallacy on that one and leave it.

As for your bible quote, did you finish reading it?

So, no matter what you think of salvation, you are still to do good works, for this is *your* purpose for which *you* were created, by *your* own cited holy verse.

  You asked about having more control over works, but not faith. Asking that the salvation should be based on the one thing you have more control is what made me suggest the question was wrong.

Is it a legitimate question? Sure, you could ask it. Considering the context, with a christian God stating the reason because it's not based on works, then I understand why you'd rather it be based on works, and not faith.

If I disagreed with a christian God, I'd rather it not be based on faith as well. I suspect there are some, maybe even many christians who'd agree with statement too. It's human nature to want to do it by your own abilities.


No, It doesn't mean that. It means you're applying a physical aspect to a spiritual concept.

  It should be summed up by stating, as a human with senses that are limited to the physical, you're going to have to trust something other than yourself to figure things past the physical senses.

So with spiritual progression, the idea of moving from this life as we know to another one requires a source other than oneself. (Unless oneself is God)

I submit one would read the bible for spiritual truth. Understandably, others will disagree.

No, I don't agree with the premise. I wasn't born a christian, nor raised into it. I became a christian.

Alright Cain. I see questions are not being responded to. I'll take it they are just not interesting or something. I guess I will stop asking you those questions then.





I never said works were bad. A christian is directed to do good works. Good works are a very good thing.

The context was what is needed for salvation, faith and not works.

I don't really see the problem as I don't think anyone said good works were not to be done.

Wrong and arbitrary from who's standards?

The rest of the post I will have to come back to.

First of all, I read your section, did you read mine?  Paul says explicitly that you need both at the very minimum.  Since I don't believe in salvation, that means you need faith even less.  It's works that count, even by the verse you cite.

Now, you're saying essentially that you can be Fred Phelps and have a higher quality of "salvation" than Mother Teresa.  There are multiple bible verses that contradict that, and many of Jesus's teachings-- not Paul, who by definition is of lesser importance than Jesus-- focus on doing good deeds instead of faith.

Ah, gotcha.  I didn't actually ask for salvation to be based on the thing we have more control over.  What asked was what does the fact that it isn't tell us about the issue.  I'm actually trying to get at the implications here, more than asking for it to be changed.


Not sure I follow you here.  When did God state the reason it's not based on works?  I saw what Paul said, but last I checked, he's not the christian God, no?  But even if we accept reason that it's not based on works "so that none can boast," why base it on faith instead?  And what does it tell us that it's based on something we don't control?  Would it have been just as well to base it on skin color or eye color or the like?  And does basing it on faith keep people from boasting anyway?  I would suggest it doesn't.


Perhaps so, but that's sort of a side issue.  What we want doesn't really come into play.  But we can learn something from what we're told the system is, I would posit.  That's more what I'm looking for here.  An examination of the implications a system that's based on something we can't control, rather than a simple "I like the system!" "I hate the system!" sound off.


Sounds like you're not understanding what I'm saying.  Sorry for not being clearer.  I'm not saying that its impossible for us to change our beliefs.  I'd guess that everyone here could come up with a counter example to such a proposition from their own lives.  So yes, if I were claiming such a thing, you having changed your beliefs would shoot down that idea very well.  That's not what I'm saying, though.  We can indeed change our beliefs.  The trouble is, when we do it, it's not an act of will.  It's not something we do on purpose.  It's an unintentional reaction to external events.  We don't will ourselves to do it, we don't make a conscious decision to do it, and it's not something we control.

You used your own conversion as an example, and I hope you don't mind if I carry on with it, as I think it actually illustrates my point very well.  If I recall correctly, your conversion came about when you were actively searching for contradictions in the bible to disprove Christianity.  You goal wasn't to change your beliefs and become a christian.  If anything, your intent was just the opposite.  Your change of belief wasn't an act of will on your part, it happened despite your intention to do just the opposite.

So if the "faith alone" doctrine is correct, you'll be saved because you now believe the right things.  But it's not because you sought out those beliefs.  It's not because you did anything right.  It was a result you were actually opposed to.  You were trying to do the exact opposite.  If you hadn't been so intent on disproving christianity you might never have looked into it further and ended up changing your mind.  Doesn't it seem a little odd to you that the intention on your part that would lead you to being saved was actually completely counter to christianity?  Doesn't it seem a bit strange that the system might end up punishing someone to eternal torment because they weren't quite as anti-christian as you were?

I'd guess (and correct me if I'm wrong) that you view it more as a reward for changing your view point.  But changing your view point wasn't your decision.  It wasn't what you set out to do.  It was an unintentional reaction.  A bit like blushing, perhaps.  Something you did despite what you wanted to do, rather than something you did on purpose.  It seems odd to me to reward such a thing.  Why reward someone for something they have no control over?  It's like rewarding something for being tall.  Or for being born at on a certain date.  It seems arbitrary to me.  Does it not seem at least a little bit like that to you as well?

I have to say, GMC, I'm not seeing that Paul says you need works in the quote you highlighted.  It says works are what we're created to do, so yes, he views them as a good thing.  But I don't see him saying they're necessary to salvation here.  And if you reject the premise of salvation, that sort of takes you out of the discussion from the get-go, no?  Whether you believe in salvation or not, you sort of have to accept the premise in order to really be involved in a discussion over whether works or faith are necessary for salvation.


In his defense, TitL hasn't said this.  I have, and I think it follows naturally from the "faith alone" position, but TitL hasn't claimed it, and seems to think otherwise.  Until we hear his reasoning on why he doesn't think it follows we can't really judge it.

In general, I think you might make more progress point out the "multiple bible versus that contradict that" that just stating that they exist.  TitL may not agree with your interpretation of them, but at least it'll lead to some discussion of the actual text on which the debate is founded, rather than both sides just asserting that they're right and that the bible backs them up.

Well, it's my opinion I suppose, which is all anyone can fall back on when discussing such things.  Even if we appeal to some other standard, it's still just our own opinion that that standard agrees with our interpretation.  But in any case, yes, I think it's wrong to subject people to infinite torture for any finite crime.  It's worse than anything any human has ever done, or is even capable of doing, since it's infinite and we're limited to finite effects.  To be honest, sending someone to hell is sort of by definition that worst possible thing that can be done.  Not just bad, but as bad as anything can be.  Nothing is worse.  Not murder, not genocide, not rape, nothing.  Doing it because someone didn't believe the right thing (something they don't have direct control over) seems very much wrong to me.

As for arbitrary, basing someone's fate on something they can't control seems very arbitrary to me.  It'd be like basing their salvation on their birthday, or their mother's maiden name, or the color of their eyes.


Cool, cool, no rush.  I may not be able to reply for a few days anyway, as I'll busier the next two or three days than I have the last few.

I still think the following biblical verses are good evidence that the Bible stands for the proposition that Faith is a Necessary, but not Sufficient, condition of salvation, and that works is another Necessary, but not Sufficient condition of salvation.

"But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God; Who will render to every man according to his deeds." (Rom 2:5,6)

"And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meet." (Rom 1:27)

"For circumcision verily profiteth, if thou keep the law: but if thou be a breaker of the law, thy circumcision is made uncircumcision." (Rom 2:25)

"Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law." (Rom 3:31)

"And if ye call on the Father, who without respect of persons judgeth according to every man's work..." (1 Pet 1:17)

"And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works." (Rev 20:13)

"Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone." (James 2:17)

"For there is no respect of persons with God. For as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law: and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law; For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified." (Rom 2:11-13)

I will take this one step further and say:

Salvation = Faith + Works + Proper Ordinance

Each of these is necessary but not sufficient by themselves.

Proper Ordinance means a saving ordinance (like baptism) performed by one who holds authority.  Thus, for example, the Catholics believe you cannot be saved unless you receive baptism by a priest who holds authority.  The LDS church believes the same thing.

The difference with the Evangelical/Protestant churches is that they believe that ordinance is just an outward manifestation of faith (including accepting Jesus) and does not require proper authority, or that authority is not necessarily passed from one who holds authority to another who holds authority.
This message was last edited by the GM at 20:17, Mon 17 Oct 2011.

Seems like this discussion has died down, but I was looking back over Heath's versus, and realized that though he got James 2:17, he didn't mention the even more direct James 2:24 ("Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only."), which seems to directly contradict the faith alone doctrine held by Paul.  Also James 2:14 asks "What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him?", which the rest of the chapter answers in the negative.  Also James 2:19, "Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble." Seems like a pretty clear contradiction between Paul's view and James' to me.

For OT references, Ezekiel 18 has some stuff on James' side of the argument:


And also



On the other hand, I think Paul's position is crystal clear as well.  According to him, faith is all that matters.  Works aren't considered, and that's all there is to it.  The only real conclusion, in my view, is that James and Paul didn't agree on this.  They held difference views.  They're both in the bible, but they had theological disagreements about what got a person into heaven.   Maybe one's right, maybe the other's right, or maybe they're both wrong, but it doesn't really seem possible for them both to be right, since they contradict each other.

I disagree with your conclusion, Tycho.  James and Paul do not disagree.

Remember that Paul was writing epistles to explain how things worked, often to the gentiles who were newly converted.  So in their minds, they are thinking that if they just obey the commandments, they don't even need Jesus or salvation (or baptism, for that matter).

So the verse quoted above that says it is "by faith ye are saved" has another translation that says "by faith ye are saved, after all you can do" or something like that.

So Paul is saying that step one is to do everything you are supposed to to the best of your ability, but even then, you still need the grace of Christ because no one is perfect and only through Christ can the blemishes be taken away, and that comes through faith.  The two work in tandem and are not diametrically different concepts.

I dunno, Heath.  I think Paul's position is pretty clear.  Works don't save you.  Not at all.  None, nada, zilch.  Yes, you're supposed to do them, but not because they lead to salvation, but because God wants you to do them.  The view in James indicates a "you need both" position, but nothing in Paul's writing seems to indicate that your works in anyway impact your salvation.  Paul isn't saying "don't do good works," but he is saying "doing good works doesn't lead to salvation, and even so someone without any good works can still get salvation if they have faith."  James says you need to both, Paul says only faith counts.  I think we need to perhaps agree on what Paul's actually said, because you seem to be adding stuff that I don't recall being in there.

I agree that we need to agree on what was actually said by Paul.  Is there a particular quote you are referring to?  (I do always get concerned with quoting Paul because his epistles are not always as 100% reliable as other writings as to their content--and may have been subject to alteration, particularly around the time of the Council of Nicea.

Making the distinction between faith and works has been a large use of energy in my life and at some point I sort of read Galatians 5:6 "For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything, but faith working through love.", shrugged my shoulders and then moved on.

Faith is what saves, but the only way to know if you have that saving faith is through a life that oozes love.  So making the distinction, while important to scholars, is essentially meaningless for the practical life.

Some might claim that you can have this new agey touchy feely faith that has no action/love along with it and James says, Hey Now "What use is it, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but he has no works? Can that faith save him?"

Abhraham believed God and it was credited unto him as righteousnes, but then God tested his faith with the whole "slaughter your kid" deal.

Does faith alone save?  James (2:23) and Paul (Romans 3:27-4:5) both say "Hells yeah!"

But then they both take care to clarify that that faith is really only evidenced by works.

Messy stuff, but moving on from the distinction between the two was helpful for me at some point.  Probably would get me fired as a pastor since that's about 50% of Protestant lesson plans throw out the window, but it is what it is.

I think perhaps it's important to ask what the viewpoint is for this question as well.

For example, I might say "speed doesn't matter. You'll never drive to New York without gas. Even cars that are stopped have reached New York, as long as they have gas."
But Tycho might say, "a car that has fuel and is going to New York will gain speed in the process. All of the cars that made it to New York did it using fuel, and that fuel lead to speed."

We aren't exactly disagreeing. Tycho's is a more complete view, while mine is emphasizing only the most important detail to the operator.

I think this is the important statement.  This is how Paul demonstrates that works is essentially a subset of faith and is required, but not sufficient in itself, for salvation.  Faith can overcome your weakness, but if you don't behave in a way that demonstrates your faith (i.e., works), then you really don't have faith.

I can see that in Paul, but not at all in James.  James 2:24 is about as crystal clear as it can be on this, in my opinion:

It's not just a "works are good, and if you have faith you'll do works" line.  It specifically rejects the "faith alone" idea espoused by Paul.  Now, for someone trying to figure out whether they should do good works or not, or whether they need faith to get into heaven, the distinction is probably pretty trivial.  But if the question is whether or not Paul and James disagree on this point, I think it's pretty clear they do.  I get a bit frustrated when people say 'they're not actually disagreeing, they're just talking about different things' or the like, because it feels like people are trying to come up with some explanation or rationalization for something that's very simple, and doesn't really need it.  Two people disagreeing about something as nebulous as salvation shouldn't really be at all surprising, in my view.  They have different views, and that's okay!  By trying to force them to actually have the same view, I feel like we end up twisting their positions about into something other than what they actually said, and thus miss out on the more interesting (in my view) question of which, if any, of them was right, and why they had the views that they did.

The problem is that we are trying to separate two things that are inseparable to some extent.

Works alone implies no faith and can't get you anywhere.
Faith alone implies you don't do anything about it so you really must not have faith.
Works and faith combines the two.  One can build off of the other, but naturally if you have faith, then you believe all the writings of the prophets that say to get off your butt and do something about it.  :)

In reply to Heath (msg #91):

See, and I can agree that all of that fits with what Paul and James said, but only because you've left out the crucial point of disagreement between the two.  It's sort of like Mitt Romney saying "I love America, and the republican party is best thing for it" and Obama saying "I love America, and the democratic party is the best thing for it," and someone saying "see, they agree, they both love america!"  I feel like I've walked in on someone saying that, and I'm like "sure, they both love america, but one thinks the democrats are the best thing for the country, and the other thinks the republicans are, they don't actually agree on that."  And the other person is like, "no, no, you don't see it.  They both love america."

Yes, both James and Paul are pro-works, and pro-faith.  No argument there.  No disagreement from me on that.  However, in addition to sharing that view, they disagree on whether works faith alone was what gets you salvation.  Paul's view is that yes, faith is the one, only, single thing that gets you salvation because on the measure of works we all fail.  No one's works are good enough, but God is willing to overlook that if you have faith.  James' view is that faith alone isn't enough.  You need to earn it too.  That's a big difference.  One says works count, the other says they don't.  Yes, yes, they both think you should have faith AND do good works (and they both love america, too, I'm sure), but they disagree on whether your good works tilt the balance in your favor or not.  James says God takes them into account, Paul says He doesn't.

Again, if all we care about is practical advice about what to do, yes, the safe answer is just to say "okay, faith AND works is the way forward, got it."  And if all we care about is "should we love america" then we can say Obama and Romney are in perfect agreement.  If we want to look beyond the simple, and dig a little deeper, though, there's some room between the two.

I don't think your interpretation of Paul's words is accurate.  If he said somewhere you don't need works at all, can you point me there?  We have a fundamental disagreement on what Paul said, or the interpretation thereof.

I think you may be confusing the application of "grace" to faith because it is only through faith that we can receive "grace," regardless of how good our works are.

Okay, there we are!  ONLY through faith that you get grace.  REGARDLESS of how good your works are.  Okay, we agree that according to Paul the ONLY (as in, not based on anything else, such as works) way to get grace (and thereby, salvation), is faith.  Now, when we look at James we see that it says you ALSO need works.  Or, more to the point, it says specifically that it is NOT ONLY by faith that we're saved.

Again, let me stress (since it still seems not to have come across) that I'm not saying that Paul is "anti-works" or that he's saying you shouldn't do good work.  I'm saying that he says your works don't matter for obtaining salvation; ONLY faith gets you that, according to him.  Works don't count, because everyone fails on the works measure.  James says works DO count, and that faith alone is NOT enough to get salvation.

You say we have a fundamental disagreement on what Paul said, but then you say it is only through faith that we get grace regardless of how good our works are, which is just what I'm saying.  I feel like we may really be in disagreement about what "only" and "regardless" mean! ;)

I think we need to define grace.  Grace is where God realizes where you are at and makes up the difference to give you salvation even though you fall short.

Let's put it like this:

You want to drive to the store.
If you want to drive, you need a car.
If you want to actually get anywhere, you need gas in the car.
A car alone is not enough, but having a car is irrelevant if you have no gas.
Having gas is irrelevant if you have no car.

So "works" is your car--some people have a Mercedes, some a Yugo, but either will get you there if they've been properly maintained.
However, you need to have gas.  If you have no gas, that car is doing you no good.
Faith is the gas.  It gives value to having a car (works).
Faith is required for grace, just as gas is required for driving.
Movement from the driveway to the store is "grace."  The parts all fit together.

So Paul is arguing against the people who say they can just get behind their cars and push all the way to the store.

Yeah, but to torpedo your analogy, if you really need to get to the store you can walk.

Works is getting the job done.  Faith and Grace is how you do it.  In the end, what matters is that you got to the store, not how you got there.

I guess I feel like all these analogies are actually making things less clear.  It's actually very simple:

Paul says the only thing that determines your salvation or lack therefo is your faith.  Thats it.  Works are good, but have no impact on salvation, because none of us is good enough to get any credit for our works.

James says that you need faith AND works to get salvation.  More to the point, he specifically says that it ISN'T just faith that gets salvation.

Really, it doesn't even matter what faith, grace, salvation mean at this point.  We have a basic case of one saying "X is true," and the other saying "X is not true."  We don't need a bunch of analogies about what X is like to see that they disagree here.

A concrete example is probably better, so lets look at the classic death bed conversion scenario.  Imagine your archetypical badguy.  They do no good works their whole life.  They're as bad as can be.  Pure evil.  But, then they get some incurable disease that's going to do them in a short time.  This unavoidable death sentence gets mr. badguy thinking about his life, and he starts feeling guilty, realizes the error of his ways, says "Jesus, I really messed up, and I feel horrible about it.  I know I can't go back and change it now.  I'm sorry, please forgive me."  And he really means it.  And then he dies.

Does such a person get granted salvation?  Paul says yes, because he has faith.  He accepted Jesus as his savior, and that's the one and only thing that gets you into heaven.  His works were nothing, but for a perfect being like God, everyone's works are basically nothing.  The guy gets saved by grace, through faith.

According James, though, he doesn't get salvation, because faith without works is not enough.  Even the devils in hell have faith, says James, but that doesn't get them into heaven.  No works, means no salvation, because James says it is NOT by faith alone that we are saved.

Now, you can argue about which is right, but I get frustrated by the attempts to make it sound like they don't agree.  And it's not like I'm making this up here.  This disagreement has led to big rifts in the church throughout history.  The problem, in my view, is that christians feel it's not acceptable for two church leaders way back 2000 years ago to have disagreed about what gets you into heaven.  I sort of don't get why they should feel that way.  They can look around and see modern day church leaders disagree about things.  They can look back in history and see church leaders disagree about things.  Why would they expect the earliest church leaders to have been any different?

All righty, then let's see what Jesus said.

"Thou shalt know them by their fruits."-- the prescription for discovering if a teacher is true or false.  And since all christians are called to be teachers and ministers, it's also the test to see if someone is a "true christian".

You will know them by their fruits, by their deeds.  Jesus doesn't get into how much faith you need (he even says that the disciples don't have enough) but he does say that you need good deeds.  If Jesus himself hadn't done good deeds in the form of miracles, it's unlikely that the personality cult would have turned into christianity as we know it.

Works are the most important part, according to Jesus.  Who kinda trumps Paul, because he's, well, Jesus.

Jesus also said:

John 5:24 "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life. "

and

John 11:25 Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; 26and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?"


I can proof-text like a banshee, I used to be in ministry!

In reply to Doulos (msg #99):

And John is an example of metaphors while eating too many mushrooms.  I used to be in school for ministry as well; John is more than a little strange and says a lot of things the other three gospels doesn't.  John uses a lot more metaphor than the other gospels, without argument, and some of that applies to the quotes he ascribes to Jesus.

Well none of the Bible is really historically accurate if you really want to get down to the nuts of it all, so I guess we've solved the riddle.  Carry on.

In reply to Doulos (msg #101):

Sorry, I may have come across as more sarcastic than I intended.  Point is, Jesus never claimed that it was works or faith alone.  The mustard seed metaphor makes it clear that *no one* has enough faith.

Besides which, as the local "Secular Humanist", it seems clear to me that if there is any form of salvation, it is only achievable through works.

I'm at the point in my life where I'm able to get the Bible to say mostly whatever I'd like it to (and I have come to realize most others can do the same).  Doesn't mean it does't actually say specific things, it just means I've been around the Christian community, the Skeptic community, and the "Historical Jesus" community long enough to know that all sides will find a way to Bibilically support whatever their points will be.

Personally I lean towards seeing a sort of harmony between faith and works, but I realize that it's easy to make a case in other directions.

On a side note secular humanism is fascinating to me and I tried to make a real go at understanding it recently but for my purposes (and mine alone) it's the least livable way of life I can think of.

It's actually the only way I can live, but let's not sidetrack this thread too much.  Perhaps we can start a new thread just for the topic?

1) Love of Jesus leads to a desire to emulate Jesus
2) The desire to emulate Jesus leads to the desire to love each and every human being
3) The desire to love each and every human being leads to a desire to perform good works (to help those human beings)

(2) is the tricky implication here. It requires a holistic reading of the New Testament to determine what is most important to Jesus. Fred Phelps would likely deny implication (2) because he got a different message from the New Testament, and thus he would not agree to (3). Clearly I believe Fred Phelps interpretation of the New Testament is incorrect, but such a topic is beyond the scope of this thread.

The reason I throw in "the desire to" so many times if because of human imperfection. If you maintain these desires, then you will be genuinely sorry when you fail to achieve them, and you will be forgiven because you are still trying. The phrase quoted in several posts above "Thou shalt know them by their fruits" is the contrapositive of this chain: if someone does not do good works, then they do not love all human beings, then they do not desire to emulate Jesus, so they do not truly love Jesus.

I have to admit I do not know what will happen to those who only follow (3), because their love of humanity does not spring from a love of God. I have no logical arguments to offer here, but I hope for the best for them, and I trust God to do what is right by them.

A little delay, but I have found a few minutes to come back to this.






Well respectfully, we're basing this idea of judgement of a perfect judge who is all knowing, versus your opinion then. I understand the argument, but we're basing the context of heaven and salvation from a christian perspective of a God is is perfect and all knowing and all loving.




  Not quite a similar comparison. Since the premise of here is that all people are deserving hell for their actions, and not all people are deserving to be stabbed.



Not liking something has never actually been a logical conclusion for saying it's arbitrary or wrong though.


  I feel it's possible to have an idea whether something is christian or not in the case of Fred Phelps. My source would be the bible.

Colossians 4:4,5 5 Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity. 6 Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.

Ecclesiastes 10:12 12 Words from the mouth of the wise are gracious,
    but fools are consumed by their own lips.

But from the Westboro Batptist Church we see them doing various actions and posting rather offensive signs such as God hates fags, Thank God for Aids, God hates the USA, God hates you, etc. Picketing funerals of soldiers, Saying that God hates you, America, the world, etc, doesn't seem to match what God wants from Christians.

The members of the Westboro Baptist Church are going into the places where the sinners go, and bashing them and telling them how much that God hates them.

Do you remember what Jesus did? He went to the sinners, and shared with them, ate with them, and loved them.



Well, I'm not saying any faith is needed for salvation. I get the impression that you think faith, no matter what you think it is, any type of belief, is all that's needed for salvation.

I'm talking about faith in Jesus being God, that you are a sinner, and that Jesus died for your sins, and follow Jesus.

This goes back to my earlier statement from post #2
Faith = Salvation + Works



I think I addressed this above in this post.




I think God judges correctly who or who should not be there, so a non issue for me. If Fred is there and Ghandi isn't, well, who am I to argue with someone who knows everything. And I suspect that when I get to heaven, I will be surprised by who else might be there.

[emphasis added by Tycho]
Because all of us have actions that will send us to hell. No one is perfect. So truthfully, our actions send us to hell, our faith gets us to heaven. We don't go to heaven because of us, we go to heaven because of Jesus.

  You say it, but that isn't something I agree with, and hasn't been shown true. Would you change your view if new evidence came your way? Then you can change how you believe. People change their beliefs all the time. People convert to other religions, leave religions, falter in their beliefs constantly.



 
I disagree, since at this point, we're not talking about whether you agree with christianity, we're discussing whether if salvation and punishment are fair judgements. The premise being that God is all knowing here, and a perfect judge. He knows all the rules. Now at the time of judgement, he judges you. At that time, if the christian God is true, then you will know and agree with His judgement since it's based on God's values, which are fair, and just according to the most knowledgeable, loving and perfect God.

So the premise we should agree on here, if God is true as described in the bible, then at the time of judgement, you would accept the punishment as just.

5 But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath , when his righteous judgment will be revealed. 6 God “will repay each person according to what they have done.”
As you can see, this statement from the bible is about judgement that will send them to hell. Their heart being unrepentant. Literally, this is about people who choose to follow evil.

Heath:

"And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meet." (Rom 1:27)

Romans 1:25-27 25 They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.

26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.
As you can see, again, the people are choosing not to follow God.



It looks like we're talking about different things. It's been a while, so no biggie here if you don't want to discuss this even. But really, you're bringing up quotes on judgement of people who choose to not follow God.

Heath:

"Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law." (Rom 3:31)

Romans 3:27-31 27 Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. Because of what law? The law that requires works? No, because of the law that requires faith. 28 For we maintain that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law. 29 Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles too? Yes, of Gentiles too, 30 since there is only one God, who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith. 31 Do we, then, nullify the law by this faith? Not at all! Rather, we uphold the law.

Looking at context, we see that they were actually saying one is justified through faith.

Heath:

"And if ye call on the Father, who without respect of persons judgeth according to every man's work..." (1 Pet 1:17)

No real comment, this isn't a suggestion that this leads to salvation. It's not really for or against works leading to salvation.

Heath:

"And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works." (Rev 20:13)

Same again, so real for or against works leading to salvation. If you go to the 15th verse, you'll see the ones who are saved are the ones whose names are in the book of life.

Heath:

"Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone." (James 2:17)

We've debated this before. I again state the context of this is in reference to determining if the faith is dead or alive.



And here, if we see the context, we look at
Romans 2:17 Now you, if you call yourself a Jew; if you rely on the law and boast in God; 18 if you know his will and approve of what is superior because you are instructed by the law; 19 if you are convinced that you are a guide for the blind, a light for those who are in the dark, 20 an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of little children, because you have in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth— 21 you, then, who teach others, do you not teach yourself? You who preach against stealing, do you steal? 22 You who say that people should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? 23 You who boast in the law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law? 24 As it is written: “God’s name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.”[b]

25 Circumcision has value if you observe the law, but if you break the law, you have become as though you had not been circumcised.

So you see, by context, we know it's referring to one who thinks himself as great because they follow the law, superior to others even, and being punished for us telling others it's wrong, but doing the wrong thing ourselves.

Heath, respectfully, some of these quotes really didn't support your counter that faith is not the only thing needed for salvation. And the ones that did reference salvation, I included the rest of the verses to show how it was talking about faith leading to salvation.

I notice that the scripture you highlighted purple doesn't actually say you need works for salvation. It says you were created for works.

Why do you think that scripture reference means you need works for salvation, when it doesn't say that, and says the opposite of that only a sentence earlier?

I didn't say that. So need real need to defend something I didn't say.

Hey TitL, glad to see you back.

I think we're running into some of the same problems in this discussion as we've run into in the past.  We seem to be starting from different assumptions, and be arguing different things, and end up talking past one another.  Some of the main issues I see are:
1.  You seem to start from "every word of the bible is true" and this leads you to conclusions that don't make sense to me.  For example, you feel that since the bible says God is good and loving, and also that the bible says God orders Moses to commit genocide, and that God sends people to eternal suffering in Hell, then genocide and torturing people must not be bad things in all cases.  If God does them, they must be good, since God is good.  I'm coming from a different position, which holds that genocide and torture aren't good or loving.  So if the bible says God orders them, and also says that God is good, then we have a contradiction.  You don't seem interested in considering the possibility that every word of the bible isn't true, and to me assuming that it is seems absurd, so we're struggling to have a meaningful discussion.
2.  You seem to feel (perhaps without realizing it) that people can be wrong, but still believe their incorrect views.  I think Fred Phelps is nuts, and that much of what he does contradicts the bible, but I think he really, sincerely believes it doesn't.  I think he's wrong, but I think he believes he's not.  You seem to feel that since what he does contradicts the bible, he couldn't possibly believe that what he's doing is God's will.  You also implied in the past that everyone who doesn't share your religious beliefs deep down knows they're wrong, and that God really exists and is just like the bible says He is.  You seem unwilling to entertain the idea that people can hold factually incorrect beliefs but still sincerely believe that they're correct.  When we discuss things, I feel like you focus exclusively on what is true or not (in your view), but discount the belief aspect, the possibility that people can believe incorrect things.  You seem to imply that they can pretend to believe whatever they want, but since those beliefs aren't true (in your view), they can't really believe them.  Obviously (to me at least) this makes discussing faith and with you very difficult/frustrating for me (and others as well, I think).  I know (or at least believe!) that you're not trying to be aggravating or frustrating on purpose, but it does happen.


See point #1 above.  I'm saying "this looks arbitrary and sadistic to me, so it doesn't seem like what a good, loving God would do."  You're saying "the bible says He does it, so it must be good and loving."

It's a conclusion of logic that you can derive anything from a contradiction (we can demonstrate this formally if you like).  I think some of your beliefs are contradictory.  If you hold these contradictory things as axioms which cannot be challenged, then you can logically derive any possible position you want from them.  So I'm challenging your assumptions.  Is there any further we can take that discussion, in your view?  Is "TitL believes that it is an unquestionable truth that the bible is correct in every respect, and Tycho doesn't accept that assumption" as far as we can take it?



Think about that for a moment.  Everyone has done something so horrific that they deserve eternal torture of an infinite nature.  The worst possible thing that could ever happen.  They (by assertion) deserve that.  They deserve, in your argument, the worst possible thing that could ever happen to anyone.  But they don't deserve to be stabbed?  Do you see how that doesn't make sense to someone who doesn't assume from the start it must be true?  I agree that people don't deserve to be stabbed.  But I'd say that it therefore follows that they don't deserve something that's infinitely worse than being stabbed either.  Again, you're asserting as an axiom that hell is an appropriate punishment.  I'm questioning that assertion.  In your view, is there anything further we can really say about the issue than "Tycho thinks infinite punishment for a finite crime is inappropriate and sadistic, TitL takes it on assumption that it is not?"



I didn't say "I don't like it, therefore it's wrong."  I've pointed out that it's sadistic and arbitrary, and implied (and am now making explicit) that this is inconsistent with a good and loving God.  Your view seems to be "It's true by assumption, end of story."  Mine is "Your assumption leads to a contradiction with another of your assumptions, thus at least one of them is wrong."  Again, I'm not sure if we can take it any further than that, you?


I agree that they're not very christlike, and that they believe kooky things, and do lots of things the bible tells them not to.  But I assert that they do so believing (however incorrectly) that they're doing what God wants.  They're wrong, but they're sincere, as far as I can tell.  One could probably point out things that you've done that the bible says not to do, no?  Does that mean you aren't a christian?  No, it just means you're a sinner, like everyone else, right?  Even though I consider some of the things you believe to be incorrect, and not entirely christlike, I still believe you're a real, honest, and sincere christian.  I think you really believe all the things you tell me you believe, even when I think you're wrong about many of them.  Likewise Fred Phelps.  I believe he's wrong about just about everything, but I think he actually believes them.


Yep, and I think Fred Phelps believes all those things.  What "follow Jesus" means to him, and what it means to you are certainly different.  But I think he honestly believes he's following Jesus with all his idiotic antics.  That he's wrong doesn't mean he's insincere.

This all goes back to my point 2 above.  You seem not to be willing to accept that people can hold incorrect beliefs sincerely.  From all I've seen of the world, this seems to be the norm to me, so it seems odd to me that someone would reject it.







This seems to go back to point 1.  You take it on assumption that God is good, so there's no point in asking if what He is claimed to do contradicts that.  It seems like you don't even consider it worth thinking about.  That makes it difficult to hold a discussion.  Again, it seems to me like we get to "TitL assumes the bible is correct in all respects, Tycho doesn't make that assumption" and that's as far as the discussion can really go, no?



Okay, there might possibly a chance of getting somewhere on this point that comes up over and over.  Let's cross our fingers!  Yes, people beliefs change all the time.  Yes, if new evidence comes my way, I could very well change my beliefs.  Yes, people convert, leave religions, and falter in their beliefs constantly, I agree.  We've both, you and I, if I'm not mistaken, change our religious beliefs in the past, so obviously beliefs can change.  Pause for a moment here, and go back and read my last few sentences.  I really want them to sink in.  Beliefs can change.  I want it to be very, very clear that I believe that.  Because that's what you were arguing against, and it's NOT my view that beliefs are unchangable.  Got it?  Hopefully at this point we're on the same page about what I'm NOT saying.  The next point is the harder one (at least past on many of our past discussions): what I AM saying.  What I am saying is that we don't have control over what we believe.  We can just decide to believe up is down and down is up and really, actually believe it.  We can't just choose to believe that gravity doesn't work anymore, and really believe it.  Really, try it.  You simply can't do it.  Or at least I can't, and I'd be very surprised if you claimed you could.  What we believe CAN change.  But not simply because we CHOOSE to change our beliefs.  Our beliefs are a REACTION to the sum total of all of our experiences.  They are not set in stone never to be altered, but at the same time they are not within our direct control.  They are not something we choose.  We've had this discussion so many times you should be able to argue my side for me by now, but your last post seems to indicate that perhaps the problem was a misunderstanding of what I'm saying.  You seemed to feel that I was saying beliefs cannot be changed.  I'm NOT saying that.  I'm saying that we cannot simply choose to change our beliefs by an act of will.  I've challenged you to prove me wrong on this countless times before, but I do it again:  if I'm wrong on this, prove me wrong by simply choosing to stop believing in God for 10 seconds, then choosing to believe He exists again after 10 seconds.  Become a Muslim for 20 seconds, just by deciding that Allah is the one true God rather than Yaweh.  Turn off your belief in gravity for a minute, and really, sincerely believe that if you drop something it won't fall.  I assert that you can't do these things.  NOT that someone could never become convinced of any of them, but rather that someone cannot simply decide to change their beliefs like this.  It's not a choice, it's a reaction.  Please let me know if you can change your beliefs at will like I describe above.  If not, then we should be able to agree that our beliefs are not something we choose.  They are reactions to all of our experiences (which includes all our thoughts).  We can choose our actions, and we can choose our actions in order to increase the chances of an expected experience, which will in turn increase the chances of changing our beliefs.  But the belief itself is not a choice.  Sometimes even when we take actions that we expect to lead to a change in our beliefs (say, going to church because someone told you you would "feel the holy spirit" there) our beliefs end up not changing (because, say, you went and didn't feel the holy spirit).  Even if the rest of this discussion is largely dead-ended due to differences in assumptions, it would still be a big step forward, in my view, if we could at least agree on this (in my opinion) fairly obvious point, since it comes up pretty frequently in our discussions.



And again, if we don't share your assumption, asserting that it's correct doesn't move the discussion forward.  Your argument is circular: "If we assume that I'm correct, then I'm correct."  The assumption that you base your statement on is what is question.  So stating the consequence of your assumption in no way convinces someone to accept the assumption.

I could make the same argument by saying "let's assuming that Tycho is perfect and knows everything.  Tycho says that when you die, you will agree with whatever Tycho says.  So, when you die, you'll accept that Tycho is perfect and knows everything."  That's basically the same argument you're making, but with Tycho swapped in for God.  You obviously don't accept the argument, which means that it is logically flawed.  Not because it's Tycho, but because the form of the argument is circular.  It's flawed reasoning.  Swapping God into it doesn't make the argument better.  The logic is exactly the same.  That doesn't necessarily mean you're wrong, it just means your argument isn't sound, and that it won't convince anyone of what you're trying to argue.

Now, I have a nagging suspicion that when you read this your first reaction will be to say "But Tycho isn't perfect, so this whole argument falls apart!"  YES!  That's exactly the point.  If I assume Tycho is perfect, I can reach silly results.  If you point out "But Tycho isn't perfect!" and I reply "well, that's the premise we're working from," you'll probably say "No, that's the assumption YOU're staring from, not me!", right?  And that's exactly how I feel when you tell me what premises "we're" working from.  I'm not starting from the same assumptions that you are.  So asserting the consequences of that assumption are somewhat irrelevant to me, just like me telling you that you'll believe I'm perfect when you die is irrelevant to you, because you don't assume that I'm prefect from the start.

So, to sum it up:
1.  Your argument rests on assumptions that I don't share (that the bible is perfect, that God is all-knowing, all-loving, etc.), so that's about as far as the discussion seems likely to go.  You believe those assumptions without question, I don't.  If I did, your views would follow, but the views you argue here in no way impact the likelihood of those assumptions being correct, so we're sort of at an impasse.
2. You don't seem to feel that people can believe they're doing right when they're actually doing wrong.  I think they can.  That seems to be about as far as we can take that, as far as I can see.
3.  Is there any chance we can agree that beliefs are not under our direct control, but rather are reactions to the experiences we've had.  Can we agree that our beliefs can change, but that it takes new experiences to be bring this about, not simply an act of will?

Thanks.



Actually, I think I disagree with some of that, and agree with some of that.

I feel that it seems natural that if I accept the bible is true, then other things will follow in that regard. And vice versa for you. You feel that other statements are true, and so other view points are based off of that.

So we agree on that, but having said that, that doesn't conclude that I am not willing to look at other evidence. To make the point, it appears you took the perspective that you aren't willing to take on other evidence.

My reason for saying so? We're discussing the premise that you are facing God at judgement, and you state you would not accept it as just, because it's based on the principle you do not agree it's fair or just based on what you know now. Obviously, if you're at judgement in front of God as described, there has to be some more evidence you are not considering. (You're in front of God, that has to be evidence for Him, right)

That is what we were discussing, yes? To accept that God as described in the bible is judging you, therefore when you realize it's true, then you would accept you are guilty of breaking His laws. Just as you would accept if you murdered a person, you would have to face judgement in front of a judge for murder. Admittedly, no one likes punishment, but we accept we are guilty and deserve punishment.


Why?
I accept that he can read, and just as you brought his name up because it was so shocking obvious he wasn't keeping to scripture, why do you think he can't read scripture to determine he's not following the bible as written?

I think this is the basis for the disagreement. I think it's possible to be wrong, know your wrong, and still live and do things that are wrong, even if you have goals of otherwise.

Example, we know it's good to eat well, exercise, help others, respect people, etc. And yet all of us don't work out, eat well, help others, or respect people all the time.

I think it's totally reasonable that people can know what's right and choose not to do it, even if they believe it's for the best if they did do it.

That's a fleshly sin nature that pulls us away to do things we know are wrong.

Romans 7:15-17 15 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16 And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me.

  Not really what I think. I think lots of people feel they are heading towards God's will. People have been trying to do all sorts of things that aren't in the bible that they believe is God's will.

  Well, respectfully, I think I have made it pretty clear that I feel people will choose to do things that are wrong for plenty of reasons. I don't really have any problems in accepting that people make mistakes or choose to do wrong, myself included. I kind of think that this point is something that I don't really argue.

Personally I don't really see any problem with people believing in anything, since they do it all the time. So I guess I disagree with your statement that people pretend to believe. It doesn't really apply to me.


Actually, we're starting from the premise that you are facing God at judgement, and you would agree that you are guilty and deserving of justice.

Therefore it only makes sense it's true, since you're there seeing it right then and there.

Your countering it can't be true since you don't believe it. Why would you not believe something happen then and there? Not believing something doesn't actually change truth, right?

Can we agree that if you're in front of God as described in the bible at judgement, you would agree God exists and you would accept you broke His laws?

I think we can question each other, and add view points. I don't really see the problem here.





When you break a law, you are held accountable to that law. Agree or disagree? Now you may not like the laws of certain countries, and that happens. But if you're in that country, you would accept that you are held to their standards of the law, and not your own, correct? Agree, disagree?


  I think it seems reasonable that there are different standards held by various people. You feel that something really bad in your opinion happens, than things that are less bad in your opinion makes it okay too. I don't agree with that premise.

It doesn't matter if you don't accept the bible, the justification for that stance does not make the comparison true.



  But that doesn't make the statement that we don't deserve hell because you don't think people should be stabbed true.

 

Sure we can go further.

Here's an example. What's worse? An 300 pound adult fighter punching as hard as he can .....
a 2 year old child
his significant other
A 300 pound adult fighter in the ring
the president of the USA

Certainly we can compare that some situations are worse than others, and some deserve greater punishment, agree/disagree?



Yes, you did. You said it was based on your opinion. What other basis would you suggest arbitrary and wrong?

I'm at a complete loss how or where you have countered me based on an assumption that counters another assumption I have made? More so, I think it seems pretty reasonable actually to state if you're in front of God at judgment that you would have to accept that God exists, and that you broke His laws?


But I'm not saying they don't believe what they are doing is right. I'm saying what they are doing is counter to what is Christian. Not a crazy concept, you would agree that there are numerous groups out that that claim christian, and they are in contradiction to each other? So following the logic, if something is true, and in conflict, it's possible that there are groups who are not following truth on the matter? Also following the logic, you would agree or disagree that there is the possibility of knowing something is true or not.


 I don't anyone is saying that you need to be perfect to be christian. However, I think it's pretty reasonable that people know when they aren't following the bible with some simple reading. I'm pretty sure that the members of the Westboro church have had people even let them know what is said in the bible. Ergo, I think it's reasonable that the members of the Westboro Church know they are in conflict with what God wrote.


Nah, I disagree. I think they can read, and have chosen to do something else instead of what it says in the bible.

I disagree, I think people can choose plenty of things, even knowing it's wrong, or by mistake doing the wrong thing.







  I'm not sure why you feel my position is based on assumption? Is that because you feel that I cannot have it based on evidence? I am at a loss how you hold me as difficult to converse with because I must be making assumptions because I have a different viewpoint than you who is basing it on evidence and not assumptions, right?

You do see an irony in stating my position is based on assumption? It assumes that my position is not based on evidence.



Hmm. I have always thought you were saying we couldn't change our beliefs. Weird. I guess a non issue for me then. I accept that people can make choices to follow or not follow God, whether you feel He exists or not, and abide by that.

For example, I accept that I go to judgement in front of allah, than I clearly have chosen to disobey him. I don't really see this as a concern. I think it's a pretty conscious choice that if there is no God, then I'm wrong, if there is 1000 gods, then I am wrong, and so forth.

I see it as a non issue. If you choose blue, then you are also choosing not red, not green, not yellow, etc.



But that's not what I'm stating. I'm stating if you're in front of God........

I agree withthe premise, that swapping tycho for God, and all that, however, we weren't debating if God is real, we were talking about how if you were in front of God at judgement.....

Right, but that is the premise we were discussing.
No, I didn't say that.
yes.

Hmm, seems like we made some head way there.  Not on the main thrust of this discussion, perhaps, but I'll take progress even on off topic stuff when we can get it! ;)


Excellent, so far so good.


Not sure where evidence really comes into the discussion here.  My point is that we're largely arguing about principles that are taken as axioms/assumptions/premises/whateveryouwanttocallthems, and that since we disagree on those, all that comes after them is sort of beyond the point.  If your argument is based on premise X, and a bunch of evidence, but I don't agree with premise X, then the evidence doesn't matter.  No matter how much evidence you pile up, the argument won't sway me as long as it is based on a premise I don't hold.  And vice versa for me trying to change your mind.  If my position is based on premise Y, and you don't agree with that premise, than no amount of evidence I can provide will make my position convincing to you.  That's just how logic works.  We can't really move past the disagreement over the premise, because that disagreement is by itself sufficient to cause disagreement about the conclusions, regardless of any other evidence or arguments we throw in along with it.  We could provide evidence for or against the premise, but that's not really what we're doing here.


It's clearly what you are discussing. ;)  You're stating a premise, and asserting that I have to accept it to be part of the discussion.  I'm saying, wait, I don't really agree with that premise.  Then you tell me I have to, because it's the premise we're discussing.  Which is sort of my point.  We're a bit stuck, since I have to accept your premise to move forward, but I don't think it's correct.

But anyway, let's say this for the sake of discussion:  Yes, if I were before God, I would accept that He exists (when you say "I'm before Him, I'm assuming I can see him, talk to Him, etc.).  Even without being before Him, I can happily admit that I've broken many of the rules the bible lays down.  It doesn't follow from that, however, that I would think the punishment was just.

Put it this way.  Sometimes people in the world today get treated unjustly by powers that they readily accept as existing, and whose laws they knowing broke.  In the past in parts of the USSR, for example, christainity was banned.  Some people broke the law to practice christianity anyway.  And sometimes they got caught, and hauled before some manner of judge who would dish out ridiculous punishments, such as shipping them off to work camps.  The people who suffered under that regime realized they were breaking the law.  They realized that the law was real, and the government really actually existed.  But they certainly didn't feel their punishment was just, or that the government was good for sending them to siberia.

You seem to be asserting that if I realized God existed, I would have to accept also that He was good, and just, and loving, even as he committed an act that I considered to be bad, unjust, and hateful.  If you're telling me it's part of the premise that I would think he was good, just, and loving, and that therefore anything He did had to be good, just, and loving, then yes, obviously I would think that.  But that would be an argument purely from assertion, along the lines of "assume A is true; therefore A is true."  You've avoided all my points simply by asserting it as a premise that the opposite is true.  So again, I dispute your premise.  If your argument depends on it, that's about as far as we can go.


Accepting that we are guilty of breaking a law, and that we're deserving any particular punishment are two different things.  The latter does not always follow from the former.  If you got pulled over for going 1 mile over the speed limit, and the cop said "because you've broke the law, we're going to kill your family," you might willing to accept that you we guilty, but surely wouldn't accept that you deserved such a punishment.




I've seen people come up with lots of crazy interpretations of the bible.  It's easier for me to believe that he has a crazy interpretation, than it is for me to believe that he really thinks he's committing acts of horrible evil, but is doing it just to be difficult.  For you it seems like the opposite is easier to believe.  not really sure where to go from there.


Okay, that's good.  But why don't you feel Fred Phelps could be one of these people?  I think he is one of them, and has come up with bizarre interpretations of the bible to justify his beliefs, but I think he really believes these bizarre interpretations.



Heh, yes, if we're starting with the premise that I'd agree that I deserved to go to hell, then I suppose it follows that I'd agree that I deserved to go to hell.  As I've said, though, I dispute that premise.


Not sure where you got that.  Did I say "I don't believe it so it can't be true?"  Not, I'm saying I don't believe it, which means I don't think it's true.  That much isn't really an argument, just a statement of my disagreement.  My argument is why I don't believe it, which is that a being that send people to eternal torture is not one that is good or loving.  Thus the premise that He is good and loving is contradicted.


Yes, I don't dispute that.  What I dispute is that I would consider the punishment just, or that I would consider Him loving or good if He administered it.  Accepting that something exists, and accepting that it is good, loving, and just are two very different things.


Yes.  That doesn't make the law just, nor does it mean I deserve any punishment the law chooses to dish out.


Yes, not disputing that I can be punished unjustily.  People receive unjust punishments every day.  The fact that they receive the punishments does not make the punishment just, however.  Nor does the fact that they receive the punishment make the person accept that the punishment is just.


Not just bad things happening, but punishments.  Going to Hell is infinitely worse than being stabbed.  If we don't deserve to be randomly stabbed for our sins, then we don't deserve go to hell for them either.  If being randomly stabbed for believing the wrong thing is an just punishment, being sent to hell is far, far more unjust.


Yes, but that's not what we're asking (and ironically, it undermines your position that the penalty for every crime is exactly the same--eternal torture in hell).  Whether different crimes deserve different punishments is besides the point.  The question is whether an infinite punishment is ever appropriate for a finite crime.





Huh?  "Arbitrary" doesn't mean "I don't like it."  Saying something is wrong in my opinion doesn't just mean I don't like it.  I'm saying I don't believe your premise, because it implies an arbitrary and sadistic deity while at the same time asserting His goodness and justness.  I'm saying your assertions are inconsistent, and thus at least one must be false.  Yes, that is my opinion, but it's a far cry from "I don't like that so it can't be true."



I find "God is good, loving, and just" to be contradicted by "God punishes anyone who believes the wrong thing to an eternity of torture in hell."  I know you don't consider that a contradiction, because you don't start with the assumption that "an eternity of torture isn't something good, loving, and just beings subject others to."  Because you've started with the premises you have, you are led to the conclusion that torture isn't necessarily a bad or unloving or unjust punishment.  To me that looks absurd.  But to you, the idea that God isn't loving of just sounds absurd.  Where we end up depends on what we accept as true before we start.  We've accepted different things (me, that torture is not loving, you that God is loving), so reach different conclusions.  We don't see the contradictions in our own views because they come from premises which we don't share.  Without shared assumptions, we're pretty much guaranteed to disagree on the conclusions. Again, that's just how logic works.




Yes, agree with you so far...


I'm with you up to the point where you say they're not following the truth.  It seems a large leap, to me, though to say that they realize they're not following the truth.  You say above that you're not saying that they don't believe what they're doing is right.  So why do you just a few sentences later assert that they know they're not?  How can they know they're doing something wrong, and yet believe they're doing something right?  That doesn't make any sense to me.


I think you overestimate them, in that case.



<shrug>Guess we just disagree, then.  Like I said, it sounds like you have trouble believing that people can be sincerely mistaken (or at least these particular people).  I think they really think they're doing what God wants them to do.  That you and I think there is plenty of evidence to contradict their beliefs doesn't mean they don't believe it.  I think there is plenty of evidence to contradict your creationists beliefs, but I'm pretty sure you really, sincerely hold those beliefs.  It's not that I don't think you can read, or that you've never read a science book, it's that your faith in other things (a literal interpretation of the bible, in this case) trumps other evidence for you, and causes you to interpret things in ways that to me seem bizarre.  Likewise, I think, for Fred Phelps and his gang.  Their beliefs make them come up with bizarre (to me and you) interpretations of the bible.  Just as your beliefs seem strange to me, their beliefs seem strange to you and I.  But just as you really hold the beliefs, despite how odd they seem to me, they can still hold their beliefs, despite how odd them seem to us.  And just as no matter how much I tell you your beliefs are wrong, and no matter how many science books I point you towards, your beliefs aren't really shifted, no amount of pointing them at the bible and telling them their beliefs are wrong is going to shift their views.

The key point here is that faith causes us to interpret the world differently than we would otherwise.  If we believe with all our heart that a book is the word of God, and that book says both "1+1=3" and "1+1=5", then we'll believe that three and five are the same thing.  It doesn't matter that it's a contradiction.  We'll believe it CAN'T be a contradiction, because God's word can obviously have no contradictions in it.  ANY explanation that eliminates the contradiction will seem more believable to us than accepting that a contradiction exists.  It doesn't matter that the explanation sounds absurd to other people.  They just don't get it (and God will punish them for being so blind anyway).



Hmm, perhaps the word 'assumption' is causing a bit of problem here.  I'm using it in the formal logic sense, not the more causal sense.  You seem to be using the word "premise" instead, so feel free to substitute that for "assumption" if you like.  The reason I think your argument is based on assumption is because that's all you've offered in the discussion so far.  You keep saying "that's the premise we're discussing," telling me I have to accept it because it's the premise.  That's what I mean.  You haven't offered any evidence that your premise is true, you've just asserted it.  Nothing wrong with that, per se, except that I don't agree with the premise, so whatever conclusion you reach from it won't matter much to me.  It'd be a bit like me staring an argument with "Let's assume the moon is made of green cheese..." and then concluding "therefore everyone should give me all their money."  It doesn't matter how perfect my logic was going from A to B, you're not going to give me your money, because you don't agree that the moon is made of green cheese.

Your beliefs may well be based on evidence, but your argument here hasn't mentioned any, so the position you are arguing isn't based on evidence.


I think you misinterpret me.  You haven't offered evidence, just a premise.  Your argument is based on that assumption (again, call it a premise if you like).  I'm not assuming your argument is based only on assumption (ie, I'm not stating "you must accept that your argument is based only on assumption because that's the premise we're discussing"), I'm pointing out that you haven't offered anything other than the premise in your argument.  If there's evidence to back that premise up, you haven't provided us with it.


Whoa!  Major progress that!  I've been trying to get that across for years now! :)  Okay, while it seems like a "non issue" for you, some important things follow.  You often say things like "atheists choose not to believe in God," but hopefully you realize now why that's not accurate.  Belief is not a choice.  You can say "atheists choose not to go to church" or "atheists choose not to act like they believe in God when they don't" or "atheists choose not to seek out the experiences that are most likely to change their beliefs" etc.  But those don't mean the same thing.  And, when saying something like the latter, it'd be great if you could keep in mind the particular choicethat led to your conversion.  If I recall correctly, you choice to read more of the bible because you wanted to prove it wrong.  That reading was the experience that changed your beliefs.  You didn't choose to start going to church and praying and the like because you wanted your beliefs to change.  What you wanted was confirmation that your former beliefs were correct.  So while you follow God now, that's because your beliefs are already changed.  Your current christian actions are a consequence of your changed beliefs, not the other way around.  You didn't become a believing christian by acting christian; you started acting christian after you became a believing christian.  The change of belief had to come first.  So if you imply people could change their beliefs just by choosing to change their actions, you're ignoring that that's not how it worked for you.  You didn't choose to become a christian.  You chose to try to prove christianity wrong, and end up as a christian in the process, completely unintentionally.  The importance of this is that when you say things like "people choose not to believe in God," you imply a degree of intent, and imply that they should intend to become christians.  But it makes no sense to do so, because belief has to come first.


Exactly, great example.  Do you feel guilty for any of this?  Do you feel you deserve punishment?  Does this possibility change your actions?  No, of course not.  You "don't really see this as a concern" because you simply don't think those things are true.  Likewise for non-christians.  For them it's just as much a non-concern for them, as Allah judging them is for you.  The only way to make it a concern is to convince them that God is real.  The belief has to come first.  Then the actions can follow.  Expecting actions before belief is to confuse the cause and the effect.


Yes, but choosing blue is an action.  Believing that blue is the best color is not.  Treating the two is the same thing misses important differences.


You were talking about that... ;)



That you're discussing.  I don't accept the premise as you assert it.



Huzzah! :)  Might not be the agreement either of us were looking for in this discussion, but it's a big one in my book! :)

I think that over time, people have confused the meaning of having faith as in 'having trust in' with having faith as in 'believing regardless of evidence'.

It really doesn't seem like the modern sort of faith was important in any of the biblical tales, but the other sort of faith was.

Moot point, it was in refernce that I was disagreeing with your point#1 that you thought was my position. -quote Tycho"1.  You seem to start from "every word of the bible is true" and this leads you to conclusions that don't make sense to me. "


Yes, that's really all it is, that you're perspective would change in that scenario. I think it seems reasonable that if the evidence is showing the bible true now, then you would realize -if true, then it is true.

You're not discussing that though, so I'll end this line of discussion at this point. It seems to have come to it's end.

Why is it not just? Based on what evidence?

Well no. I'm not talking about God being in front of you, but seeing the God as described in the bible, judging you in the events described in the bible.

I think it's moot though at this point.


I disagree, and think we can agree the same crime can have different punishments, and still be fair. Also, we can have different crimes, and have the same punishment. I think we can agree to this through questions and logic.




Actually, not stating that. You do seem to switch meanings back and forth here. I am only stating Fred is aware he is not following scripture from the bible. Not a big deal, lots of people do not follow the bible and still claim christian. But it seems reasonable that to follow christianity, you would follow the bible and not a football magazine, regardless of how faithful you believe it is to do so.

You're interchanging Christianity for belief.


Not what I was saying.


Actually, you are saying that. You said even if you were in front of God judging you as described from the bible, you would not feel it's just, which is based on your view point.

Maybe a moot point now though.



That's to establish who determines the consequences. If the person who determines the consequence is just and correct, then the consequence is just and correct.




Yea, I'm not agreeing to this, and I don't even see how it's logical. You are making a statement that is not logical to establish the other is now true.



I was asking this to determine a punishment. If you relook at the question, which one do you think results in the greatest punishment?

It's a serious question. Of the four people being harmed, which one results in the greatest punishment?





I don't agree. I'm not sure how one can say it's arbitrary based on an opinion is somehow different than saying you don't like it because it's doesn't match your view point?

Maybe a moot point. I'm ok in dropping this as it seems pretty clear to me what it means, and it seems you don't agree with that at all. So agree to disagree?



I don't think you're proven your statement. That my assumptions are in contradiction with another of my assumptions. To me, at best, your assumption contradicts my assumption is the conclusion reached.

That was the only thing I found incorrect in the statement. I think we agree that where we base our assumptions are in disagreement.




Yes, agree with you so far...


Actually the original point is how to tell if someone is christian, and you're interchanging that with belief. Someone's belief does not make it christian.

  It's because they know they are not following scripture in the bible on all matters. It's not like they haven't been told these verses. They are actively disregarding scripture. A choice.




I don't think I have any trouble believing that people can be mistaken, as I have said people make mistakes all the time.

I believe what's happening here may possibly be the changing of words here and talking over each other. But I think it's reasonable to tell if someone is following the bible, and that seems the best tool to use if someone is follow Christ. Jesus used the bible to compare right from wrong. Just as you would use a football rules book to know if the play is correct or not. You don't use your beliefs to determine if someone is following Jesus or not.


Strangely enough, I disagree. I don't think any expalantion that eliminates the contradiction means the contradiction doesn't exist. I think it needs to be reasonable and possible. I think that's the same standard other people should hold onto too, reasonable and possible explanation.



No, the problem was you made a statement that my position was based on assumption, not on premise. so there's no point in asking if what He is claimed to do contradicts that.  It seems like you don't even consider it worth thinking about

It suggests I was unwilling to consider other ideas.



The statement is incorrect. One does not have to provide proof before something is true. This is kind of the issue I am referring to.

What I can agree with, is that I wasn't attempting to prove my evidence.


I think I have addressed the issue in the above replies.


It's completely accurate. I am choosing to not believe in no God, I am choosing actively to believe Allah is not real, etc.

It looks like we disagree.


I see it as a non issue, yes, but if I'm wrong, it's because I made the choice to do so.


What? Could you rephrase?

The age old argument. People have been trying to make their own way to God since the beginning. Regardless of what was written down in black and white, people will try and support their beliefs anyway they can.

Almost everyone basically picks and chooses the aspects of their religion that they happen to agree with and ignore the rest.

I kind of agree with that. But to take it a step further, that thought process is pretty general with philosophy, or ideas too. People look to support their beliefs, and ignore things that counter their religion, belief systems, parenting, how to train your dog, the best vehicle manufacturer, etc.

Heh, sometimes it seems like we make two steps forward and one step back, TitL, but that's still net progress, so let's keep on rollin'. :)



Do you consider it just?  I intentionally picked an example that I figured we could both agree was unjust.  Are you saying the soviets were just when they punishment people by sending them to work camps in siberia for practicing christianity?

To answer your question, though, I'd say it's not just for two main reasons:  First, there is the issue of whether the "crime" is something that deserves punishment at all.  Is it just to punish people for practicing their religion?  I would argue no (so long as their religion harms no one else, at least.  Some crazy cult that kidnapped people and killed them would be a different issue).  Second is the fact that the punishment is unproportional to the crime.  It's too harsh a punishment for the crime.  Do you disagree with these?  Do you think it's just to punish people for being christians, and that sending them to siberia is a just punishment?


I disagree, and think we can agree the same crime can have different punishments, and still be fair.</quote>
Wait, you're actually saying that you think it'd be fair (or more to the point, just) if a cop pulled you over for going one mph over the limit, and the punishment was that your whole family got executed?!  Is there any punishment that you DON'T think is just?  Could you please give an example of an unjust punishment for me, because clearly the extreme examples I'm coming up with aren't working!


I can agree that different crimes can this.  Different crimes can carry the same punishment.  Independent of that, it's also possible for different crimes to deserve the same punishment.  For clarity, that's NOT to say that all crimes deserve the same punishment.


Actually, not stating that. You do seem to switch meanings back and forth here. I am only stating Fred is aware he is not following scripture from the bible. Not a big deal, lots of people do not follow the bible and still claim christian. But it seems reasonable that to follow christianity, you would follow the bible and not a football magazine, regardless of how faithful you believe it is to do so.</quote>
It seems reasonable, but I don't view Fred Phelps as all that reasonable.  I think he's probably convinced himself of some pretty kooky (to you and me) interpretations of scripture.  I think he believes he's following scripture, and has come up with interpretations of scripture that he follows that would seem very bizarre to you and me, but he really believes them.


To me, that's what christianity is, a belief system.  If someone believes that Jesus is the son of God, and has died for their sins, that is what makes them a christian, in my view.  Their actions don't determine if they're a christian to me, their faith does (and "faith" to me means belief).  Some people are better than others at acting the way their holy book tells them to act, but the beliefs are what make them a christian, in my view.

This is particularly important in a "faith vs. works" discussion.  The "works" are their actions.  It's what they do.  Their "faith" is what they believe.  I think Fred Phelps has a lot of faith, but his works are pretty lousy.  If faith is what gets you salvation, then Fred Phelps should get salvation.  If works matter, then he shouldn't.



I think we have different meanings of some terms here, so we're not understanding what each other is saying.  I know I'm not understanding what you're saying here, and it sounds like you're not understanding me.  Can leave at that if you like, or you can try to clarify.  Not too fussed either way myself.  For what it's worthy, I'm NOT saying "I don't believe it, so it can't be true."  I don't believe that that follows.



I think this is a major point of disagreement for us.  It sounds like you view something as "just" if it's done by someone who "is just".  For me it's the opposite.  Someone is just if their actions are just.  Sounds like we view the causation as going in opposite directions.  Out of curiosity, is it only God that you feel this applies to, or does it work the same for humans as well?  Do you consider a human being's action to be just if they're a just person, or do you consider the person to be a just person if their actions are just?







Results in the greatest punishment, or deserves the greatest punishment?  They're not the same thing, in my view.  The former depends on who's dishing out the punishment.  In some places it's not against the law to beat your child or wife.  In other places it is.  In some places boxing is illegal (and thus carries a punishment), in other places it's not (so doesn't).  In the US I'd guess punching the president would result in the worst punishment, but I'd say punching a 2 year old as hard as you can deserves a worse punishment.







Guess we're using the same terms to mean very different things here.  Not really sure where to go from here.  To you "it's arbitrary" seems to mean "I don't like it because it doesn't match my view point" which isn't what it means to me.  As you say, probably best to agree to disagree here.




Fair enough.  I think it comes back to our differing understanding of what "just" means.


I disagree.  I think they're not disregarding scripture, but interpreting it in a way that seems strange to you and me.  I don't think they believe they're disregarding scripture.  That doesn't make them correct, but the question is about whether they have faith, not whether they're doing what's right.


But I'm not asking whether they're following Jesus, I'm asking whether they believe that Jesus is the son of God and has died for their sins.  We agree their actions (ie, their works) are bad.  The question of whether their beliefs (ie, their faith) is there or not.  To me it looks like they've got plenty of faith (too much, if anything!).  What you keep talking about is what I would call "works."



Except "reasonable and possible" are somewhat subjective.  You believe some things that I consider unreasonable and impossible, but to you they're reasonable and possible.  I imagine some of the stuff I believe seems unreasonable and impossible to you, but I assure they seem reasonable and possible to me (I wouldn't believe them if they didn't, obviously).  Likewise with Fred Phelps.  What he beliefs seems unreasonable and impossible to you and me, but I have to assume that it seems reasonable and possible to him.  If we assume that anyone who claims to believe something that we find unreasonable and impossible also think its unreasonable and impossible, then we reach a conclusion that they don't actually believe what they say they do, and are just pretending to do so for some reason.  It's easier for me to believe that Fred Phelps really believes all the kooky ideas he has than it is for me to believe that he's just pretending to believe them for some unknown reason.  I find his beliefs and interpretations as unreasonable and impossible, but it really looks to me like he considers them reasonable and possible.  People seem pretty good at believing things that are unreasonable and impossible (in my view).  Sometimes it seems more common than people believing reasonable and possible things!  ...but that may be because I spend as much time in this particular forum as I do! ;)






Two points on this:  When I say your position "is based on assumption" I mean "you've just assert it as the premise."  There's no difference between the two for me.  So if "you're asserting your conclusion as the premise" makes more sense to you, that's all I meant by it.
As for the not considering it worth thinking about, what I meant was that it sounded to me like you didn't want to discuss anything other than the premise you were asserting.  When I said something different, you kept say "but we're talking about this premise here..."  Which seemed to me like you we're trying to steer us away from a different conversation.  I assumed that was because you didn't feel the other conversations were worth having.  Didn't mean it to be offensive, just meant that it seemed to me like you weren't interested in discussions that didn't start with the premise you were asserting.





That's all I meant by it.  You were saying "this is the premise" and not trying to prove that premise.  That's what I mean when I talk about the argument being based on assumption.  In formal logic contexts, I mean the exact same thing when I say "make an assumption" and "assert a premise."  Both just mean we're saying "let's accept X is true without proof and see where it leads us."  "Assumptions," "axioms," "premises," "priors," and the like all mean the same thing in this context.



I think I'll take this bit to another thread, as it's an important issue for me, but sort of takes us off the track of this thread.

What I am establishing here, is what basis do you consider something just? Your opinion? A majority of people's opinion? Would your view of just change as more people change their views?

In my use, I would feel that it's not just to ban christianity, and punish them, or other religions for that matter. My opinion here, but our views of just are based on different reasons. Mine being from God, and yours on social construct. (Just a guess here on your basis anyway.)




Not what I was saying, I was disagreeing with the concept in general. That punishment being fair was not based on the action, but rather the intent, and who is being harmed.




I think we're talking over each other.


Yes, ok, then we mean different things when we say the words. We're talking over each other or something. I'm going to drop this, or redefine the statements, or something. I think we're spending too much time on something I think we both already agree on, but use different terms.

I disagree. I don't think faith in Jesus the Martian is going to get you to heaven. If your faith is based on something not true, then we have a problem here.

Some people reject the real Jesus in favor of their own versions.



I consider humans to be faulty and selfish. They can do just actions, but I would consider it just when compared to what God says is just.
This is kind of the important part here. Establishing punishment is based not on the action, but on the party who was offended. I suspect you're right, the president of the USA would have resulted in the most severe punishment for the same action done to another person even though they are both people.

Now if your offense is against God, then the punishment would be even greater. Since God is infinite, and even in more control.






In the old testament, it says not to wear clothes of two cloths. Guess what I'm wearing? I am aware I am disregarding that scripture. I have reason to do so, but I am aware of what I am disregarding. I accept and assume that the Westboro Baptists are capable of reading, and have been told of the issues present. Now it's possible no one has ever told them otherwise, but I don't give it much credit, after all, even you, someone who doesn't read a bible daily recognized the problem and that's why we're discussing them. Their obvious shockingly different view of scripture. If you and I recognize it, why can't other people?

Gotcha, thank you. That addresses my concern of what I was reading.

What I am establishing here, is what basis do you consider something just? Your opinion? A majority of people's opinion? Would your view of just change as more people change their views?</quote>
My view of just might be influenced by others changing their views (I would wonder why their views changed, and look into it), but I wouldn't say "well, everyone else says this is just, so it must be."  Nor would I say "person X says this is just, so it must be."  So yes, to a degree, it's just my opinion (though I think phrasing it that way tends to imply there's no reasoning behind it, which is not what I'm meaning to imply here).  Your version is just God's opinion (and in this case I DO mean without reason behind it--because if there is some reason behind it, then we could conceivably discover that reason without God).  We can disagree on what is just or not, but in most cases that don't involve God, I think we'd probably agree.  For me "God says so," isn't a convincing reason for saying something is just, any more than "all these other people say so" is.


Okay, good.  So we can agree that an entity can have the power to dish out punishment, without being just.  So it's possible for people sent to siberia to feel their punishment is unjust, even as they are locked up and led away.  Being subject to the penalty doesn't force use to accept that the penalty is just.  Likewise, I assert, with being punished by God.  Just because we're there, and have no way to escape the punishment (eternity in hell!) we aren't bound to feel the punishment is just.  You've asserted as a premise that if we're before God, then we'll feel the punishment is just.  I've given an example of someone standing before a judge that had power to deliver punishment, and the punishee doesn't feel the punishment is just.  That seems to call the premise into question.





The standard "faith alone" doctrine means that the only thing necessary to get into heaven is that you believe Jesus is the son of God and has died for your sins (okay, you also have to "accept" the forgiveness, but that's the only logical action if you believe the first bit).  That it's.  You don't have to know everything about him, or really anything else about him.  You don't have to be clever, or moral, or upright, or smart, or well-informed, or anything.  You just need to believe he died for your sins.  The faith-alone doctrine says that forgiveness is for absolutely everyone, sinners, kooks, conspiracy-theorists, weirdos, and everyone, so long as they accept that Jesus died for their sins.  Being a biblical scholar has nothing to do with it, knowing all the bible verses has nothing to do with it, being correct about everything you believe about Jesus has nothing to do with it.  It all comes down to that one question: do you accept that Jesus has died for your sins?  If you assert there's more to it than that, you're going beyond the typical protestant view that Luther broke away from Catholic church over.

Many people in the US envision Jesus as having blonde hair and blue eyes, when it's almost certain he didn't look like that.  Doesn't matter to the faith-alone doctrine.  Some people even think that Jesus spoke english.  Doesn't matter to the faith alone doctrine.  Some people think Jesus wants us to be meek and humble and love one another, others think Jesus wanted us to be like him and kick over money-changer's booths and chase them with scourges.  Doesn't matter who's right according to the faith alone doctrine, so long as they believe he died for their sins.  Some people believe Jesus was a pacifist that never advocated violence, others believe that he came to bring the sword and turn brother against brother.  Again, they all get into heaven if they accept Jesus died for their sins, according to the faith-alone doctrine.  Many people think Jesus' name was actually "Jesus," when it reality that's a translation of the name.  Doesn't matter, you can still get saved if you think that guy, whatever his name, was the son of God and died for your sins.  Believing any number of wrong things doesn't keep you out of heaven, so long as you believe Jesus died for your sins.

And Fred Phelps and company believe that very strongly, it seems to me.  They get full marks for believing that Jesus is the son of God and died for the sins of humanity.  They're completely nuts and hateful and not at all christ-like, but the faith-alone doctrine is the Jesus died for crazy, hateful, un-christ-like people too.  You don't have to be sane, or nice, or good, or christ-like to get into heaven under this position, you just have to believe the Jesus died for your sins.

On the other hand, if you think it's not just believing the right thing, but taking the correct actions in response to your beliefs, then you're not in the faith-alone camp.  That would put you in the faith AND works side of things.  That's the position that says in addition to believing the right thing, you also need to act on that believe, and do some good works.

We can agree, I think, that Fred Phelp's works aren't the kind of thing that Jesus is likely to be looking for if the faith AND works folks are right.  But if the faith-alone folks are right, then I'd say he's pretty safe.  Faith he's got, in spades, it seems to me.

I consider humans to be faulty and selfish. They can do just actions, but I would consider it just when compared to what God says is just.</quote>
So if God says raping innocent baby's is the thing to do, then that makes it just to do so?  Or would it make God unjust if he said to do that?  I argue the latter, you seem be implying the former.  Can we take it any further than that, or are we stuck there?





You're talking about the punishment, I'm talking about justice, they're not always the same.  As I pointed out, what is punished most severely and what should be punished most severely are not always the same thing.  I'm not arguing that God couldn't punish me if He exists.  I'm saying that the fact that He's capable of punishing me doesn't make the punishment just.  Yes, he's bigger than me.  Yes, he's more powerful.  But he could be bigger, greater, more powerful, AND evil and unjust.  Or simply bigger, more powerful, and just capricious.  Cliche though it may be, might does not make right, even for God.








Great example.  You 'disregard' part of scripture...but you have reason to do so.  You don't think you're going against God's will by doing so.  You feel that verse doesn't apply to you.  It's not that you believe in some different Jesus than the one in the bible because you're wearing clothes made of two different types of cloth, it's that your interpretation of the bible leads you to believe that that particular verse doesn't apply to you right now.  You may be right, you may be wrong, but you're acting in good faith, to the best of your understanding.  It's not that you can't read the bible, or that no one's ever told you about it, you just confidently believe that Jesus is okay with you wearing those clothes.  Even though the bible says specifically not to do so, and the bible is perfect, and never wrong, you feel confident that other parts of the bible make it clear that you're fine to do so.  I think the westboro folks feel about the same with the stuff they do.  I might find their interpretations more crazy than yours, but I think they really believe it.  They're acting in what they consider to be good faith, on their best understanding of the what the bible means.  Now, you and I can agree that their "best understanding" doesn't seem very good, in fact it seems absurd, but it really seems to me like they believe it.  They're not making up their own new Jesus anymore than they are.  They're probably making some serious errors in logic, but it seems like they're actually convinced.

No. Grace is where God realizes you are at. That is why he does everything for you.

Seems like we hit the end of this, but understand where each other is on this.

But the example you gave was a person. God is significantly more than a person. God being God has significantly more awareness of the situation.





And that you are a sinner. Not in disagreement with that.

Correct all the way.
No, I'm stating you are changing words, and suggesting they are the same thing.

Right. But you made a mistake. You made an argument for salvation through faith.

You switched belief from christian. I stated Phelps was not following Christ. And your arguments are Phelps believes he is, and therefore belief in Jesus equals salvation.

I'm saying faith is the only requirement for salvation
And Phelps is not following Christ.

You're saying if Faith saves,
and belief is faith
Phelps believes he is Christian
since Faith is belief and Phelps believes
Therefore Phelps is christian and saved




Well, if He said it now, I'd assume that was not God. Not because God can't speak, but it wouldn't match what He already said on the matter.

However, if God said it before, then it would be just in my view. I think that's what you want me to say, though I already know that statement is wrong based on what God says.


Yes, but I think we can establish that justice is determined by the one offended, not by the offender. We can agree to that, right?




This is one of those things you're switching around. I'm saying the Westboro church is aware what Jesus did, and they are choosing to disregard that.

I'm talking about them not following Christ, which means that's not christian.

You're talking since they believe they are, then they are. Belief does not mean following.

Yep, but I am just a person too, so can only make mind up based on what I see.  God could say "I've got a good reason for this, just trust me on it," whether He's good or evil, whether it's true or not.  If he says that right before sending me to something infinitely worse that the worst torture ever committed in the worst dictator's secret dungeon, I think I'll conclude He's not all that good.  Maybe I'd be wrong.  But likewise, maybe you'd be wrong if you believed He was good.  We're only human, have limited knowledge, so have to go with evidence we have.  The evidence in question is sending people to an eternity of torture in this scenario.  I just don't see how I could conclude that's what a good being does.


Okay, and do you think Fred Phelps believes that Jesus is the son of God, that Jesus died for his sins, and that Fred is a sinner?  Because it seems to me like he does believe all that.  He believes other kooky stuff too, but on the stuff that matters according to the faith alone doctrine, he's got full marks, and that's all that matters.


...Okay...then I'm confused why you think Fred Phelp's odd ideas about what Jesus want him to do would prevent him from getting salvation.  What am I missing?




hmm.  Which words in particular?  It does seem likely that an issue of what words mean to us could be at play here, since it seems like you agree with me one moment and not the next, so probably we're using different meanings for some words somewhere.


?!  Hmm, now I'm really confused.  My point was to describe the faith alone doctrine (ie, salvation through faith), but you're telling me it was a mistake to do so.  Why?



Perhaps there are two separate issues being confused here:
1.  Fred Phelps has the faith that the faith-alone doctrine says is what gets you salvation (or so it seems to me--if you disagree, let me know what part of the "Jesus is the son of God", "Jesus died for your sins" and "you are a sinner" list you think Fred doesn't believe).
2.  I think that faith makes him a christian, because to me being a christian is an act of belief.  If you consider a christian to be someone who acts a certain way, rather than believes a certain thing, that's fine.  The word "christian" isn't particularly important to the discussion, which is actually about whether Fred Phelps makes it into heaven or not.  You can define a christian how you like, I guess, though I think if it means someone who does exactly as the bible says, then I've never met a christian and highly doubt I ever will!


Okay, what does the latter have to do with the former?  If faith is the only requirement, then whether Fred "follows" or not isn't really an issue (if by "follows" you mean takes the actions Jesus said people should take).


No, not at all.  I'm saying:
Fred Phelps believes that Jesus is the son of God.
Fred Phelps believes that Jesus died for his sins.
Fred Phelps believes that he (Fred) is a sinner, and accepts Jesus' forgiveness.
Therefore, if the faith-alone doctrine is correct, Fred Phelps gets saved despite all his nut job beliefs and actions, and despite being an all-around pretty unpleasant character.



Exactly!  And that's pretty much how I feel, though it's less about what "He already said on the matter" and more about "what we're told He is like."  So we're told that God is good.  So if the entity that people call God does something that's not good, then I think, ah, okay, this guy must not actually be the one they're talking about OR they were wrong about Him being good.  Either way, the guy doesn't look good, and I don't feel like doing as he says, or trying to please Him.  And here's the kicker:  sending someone to hell is worse then raping innocent babies.  Not that raping babies isn't horrible.  I intentionally picked it as the worst thing I could think of, so we'd all agree it as horribly, horribly wrong.  But hell is worse than that, because it's not only worse each moment you're there, but also because it goes on forever.  That's how bad it is.  A good, loving being doesn't do that to someone.


Wow, not sure what to say there.  Radically different world views, I guess.  What does it even mean to you to say that God is "good," if no matter what He does you consider it to be good?  Is there anything God could 'have said' that would indicate He wasn't good or loving or just?  What does it really mean to say God is just, if you consider Him to be just even if He had demanded baby raping?  I guess I just don't understand what the words would even mean in your version of things.
Put another way, would you really not know it was wrong to rape babies if you hadn't read the bible?  Surely you have more empathy than that, no?  I feel like you're not giving yourself enough credit here.




No, definitely not.  Punishment may be determined by the one offended, but whether the punishment is just is not determined by the one offended.  If it were, then sending christians to siberia would be just (because the Soviet government was the offended party, and they would get to determine if it was just).  If the justness of a punishment is decided by the one offended, then no punishment is unjust, and surely you don't think that, do you?  You've even said so, since you agreed that sending christians to siberia wasn't just.



How is that different from your situation?  You've described yourself as 'disregarding' scripture about clothes made of two fabrics.  I'd use the term "interpret" over "disregard" but since you've used the latter, I'll stick with it.  You believe you're following christ while you disregard the scripture in question.  You are doing your best to do what you think Jesus wants you to do.  Maybe you're wrong, but if so, it's an honest mistake, not an intentional slighting of Jesus.  I think the westboro folks are similar (though more crazy in their beliefs).

To me, doing what you believe Jesus wants done DOES mean following, even if you're wrong about what Jesus wants.  Put it this way: you're an imperfect human, just like everyone else.  What are the chances that you know exactly what Jesus wants you to do, and haven't made any mistakes in interpreting the bible?  When you think about that, consider all the other people who consider themselves to be christians in the world, whom you think aren't following Jesus properly.  Like as not, just from statistics, you've probably made at least one mistake in your understanding somewhere, no?  Does that mean you're not really following Jesus?  Does that mean you're following some different, fake Jesus that you just made up?  Does it mean you're not a christian?  No, of course not.  It just means you're a human, and that you're not perfect, just like everyone else.  I would agree that you're doing a far better job of it than the westboro folks, but just considering the number of verses, and how many people have disagreed about them over time, I think it's a pretty safe bet that you've got everything 100% correct.  I think if there is a Jesus up there, he'll be lenient with you for doing your best.  And if the faith-alone doctrine is right, then he'll be lenient with the westboro folks too.

Also, I started a new thread to discuss the issue of belief and choices, etc.  It'd be great to get your thoughts on it, since it was sort of a spin off of discussion we were having in this thread.

I think your last sentence has a bit to the issue we're having.

I'm going to back off this line of questioning for now.

I'd like to discuss hell, and eternity I think some more. I think until some ideas about hell and eternity are dealt with, the rest is just relatively minor and unimportant.

I think Phelps believes that, yes.


Running out of time. Got to go.

The question is, how do we (as non-christians) tell the difference?  I have no doubt that Phelps is just as sincere in his beliefs as you are, so sincerity isn't the test.  He's got just as much theology background as you do, if not more, so that's not the test either.

No, the test is as Jesus said: "You will know them by their fruits."  In other words, you know that they are good people because they do good works.  Of course, this applies to everyone, not just christians.  Those who do good works are good people, regardless of what they believe.

In context, that phrase was used for prophets.

Matthew 7:15 “Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. 16 By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?

The term false prophet was originally one word,
pseudoprophētēs
psyoo-dop-rof-ay'-tace
From G5571 and G4396; a spurious prophet, that is, pretended foreteller or religious impostor: - false prophet.

Now I now you claim a prophet is also called a teacher, but in context, that's not true. The prophet was the one who spoke from God, and the teacher was needed to explain that to the people. I suppose other religions might mix the two words around freely, not sure which ones though.

Acts 13:1 Now in the church at Antioch there were prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen (who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch) and Saul.

prophētēs
prof-ay'-tace
From a compound of G4253 and G5346; a foreteller (“prophet”); by analogy an inspired speaker; by extension a poet: - prophet.

didaskalos
did-as'-kal-os
From G1321; an instructor (generally or specifically): - doctor, master, teacher.

To further see this example, we can go to
1 Corinthians 12: 28 And God has placed in the church first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, of helping, of guidance, and of different kinds of tongues. 29 Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles?

Normally I wouldn't go this far in addressing a subject, but this was something we discussed in the past, but the debate stopped.

In answer to the question, how do we (As non christians and christians alike) tell the difference?

Compare it to scripture. It's what was asked of the people, and Jesus did it. That's how you know if they are following.

Nice try, but there's a later verse that calls all of Jesus's followers to be prophets and teachers.  At any event, you're definitely taking things too literally; the verse I quoted was intended to refer to all people, not just prophets.

And even that is another red herring on your part.  The fact remains: If I want examples of good christian behavior, christians aren't always a good place to get it.  Non christians show much more christ-like behavior than some christians, such as Phelps.

Actually, it was false prophets. The word was not prophets it was one word that translated as false prophets.
But if you have scripture that shows otherwise, let's discuss it.



Yea, if you take someone bad of any faith, and compare them to someone good of another faith, that is evidence there are some people who are better than bad people. I think we both agree that fact remains.

If I want examples of good __________ behavior, __________ aren't always a good place to get it.

That statement is true regardless of who you put in the blank. Buddhists, atheists, agnostics, christians, muslims, students, etc

Which brings us right back to Faith vs Works.  We know who are the good guys and who are the bad guys in any group by their works, by their actions.  Their devoutness is not something we see.  Again, you and I agree that hatemongers like Phelps are extremely sincere and devout in their beliefs.  How do we know the difference between them and "good" christians?  By their works.

So, we have come back to my original conclusion: in the end, faith is irrelevant.  Works is all that matters.

Some non-Christians show much more Christ-like behavior than some purported Christians (I'm not sure if this is what you intended to say or not). But why are you bringing up Phelps again? Didn't you show in your last comment that Phelps was not a real Christian, because he doesn't do good?

I have no idea of Phelps is a real christian or not.  I have no right to judge who is and who is not a real christian.  I just judge who is and is not a good person, based on their works.  Hence why, in my book, works matter the most and faith not at all.

Well, in the times of Jesus, he actually kept speaking badly about a group called the Pharisees, who did everything they were asked to in the old testament.

And then he went to those who were the dregs of society, the tax collectors, prostitutes, etc, and pointed out it was not by their actions they were saved, but by God's

Respectfully, I get you feel that works determine a good person or not, but is that consistent with salvation as talked about in the bible?

Understandably, I do get you do not feel the bible is true. So it's not a big deal to you that the bible does mention faith is needed for salvation, right? Would you agree that the bible does mention that concept several times fairly clearly? (I know you mentioned works, and the bible does speak on works, but the question I'm asking is if you agree that bible is kind of clear on mentioning faith is needed for salvation)

The bible does indeed mention salvation, but even then, faith is not the only requirement for salvation.  Works and deeds are required as well.  Jesus made a big deal about how you needed to do good things; Paul was the one who wrote that it was "by faith alone", but even then he stressed the importance of works.

Let's go back to the "by their fruits" example.  I know you insist that it only refers to prophets, but you're taking the verse too literally.  Jesus's teachings were in parables and metaphors: a good prophet does not literally sprout leaves and figs!  So, by examining the metaphor, we see that good people naturally do good things.  Those are the "saved" people, who produce good works and have good faith.

I know you feel that is true. But what I asked was can we agree that there are several scriptures from the bible that state that salvation is a result of faith?

This shouldn't be a real concern for us to agree with that much. We're coming from different backgrounds, but either it says it or it doesn't.

I understand the bible contains metaphors, but just because there is a metaphor in one paragraph about some story, that doesn't mean a word that directly translates as false prophet means that too is a metaphor.

But I think I see where you are going with this. If everything is a metaphor in the bible, then I concede that prophet can mean teacher and neighbor, friends, etc. It can relate to many many things.

Obviously since it is not written in a metaphor, I don't really agree with that premise.

You have to remember that word was literally "false prophets" not prophets.

Not everything is a metaphor (Numbers is pretty much the epitome of dry, literal history), but Jesus's teachings were in parables and metaphors.  And his teachings do relate to many things.  "Treat your neighbor as yourself" doesn't literally mean neighbors, or people you know.  It's not permission to mistreat strangers because they don't live next door.  It's well understood that it means to be kind to *everyone*, even though it says "neighbors".

I had to check back and make sure the first question I asked wasn't being put in some private line, or using the hide tab function. But I must be doing it wrong, as it looks like the question I was asking still looks like it's formatted right so that it can be read by anyone. ;)





As to the metaphors, I did agree that there were metaphors used in other scripture, but we know not everything Jesus taught was a metaphor.

To sum up the debate, you're saying when it said "false prophet" it was a reference to teacher, or person, because it has metaphors in other parts of the bible. And being a metaphor, it would also be true it didn't actually mean false prophet? Unless a literal metaphor?
This message was last edited by the player at 00:15, Tue 21 Aug 2012.

When discussing our judging other people, I think it's important for us to remember our own limitations. Absolutely, I feel comfortable judging whether someone is living a christ-like live based on their actions (and I do agree, a lot of Christians fall short, and a lot of churches seem focused on the wrong things, although this is in no way universal).

However, God is not so limited, and can see aspects of the story we can't. It's quite possible that Phelps is somehow mentally disturbed, or otherwise hurt, such that he simply cannot deal with things properly. Or it's possible that he is fully responsible for his actions and, while he claims to have dedicate his life to God, he truly is dedicating it to something else, and just lies about it (possibly even to himself). Ultimately though, that discussion is academic. Not even Phelps knows.

I would like to think that "faith" is more than just blind acceptance, but that it implies some sort of relationship. I can have faith that the pretty girl I met last night will come take me out today, but if I don't actually have a relationship, that faith is grounded on assumptions and ignorance. Just speaking for myself, I feel like if I talk to some happy-go-lucky fellow that Jesus will take care of him when he dies, and he says "sure", but doesn't do anything else, that that person is not automatically among the chosen.

Of course, I don't have any references for this, and even if I did, anyone who knows Hebrew or Greek better than I do would certainly rip me up. So take my beliefs for what they're worth :)

You're trying a rhetorical trick again.  There are a fair number of verses that refer to what we understand as salvation (honestly, I don't recall if Jesus ever actually used that term), and while some (mostly by Paul, IIRC) refer to faith alone, others refer to works alone, and some refer to both.  So the correct answer is, yes, the bible does contradict itself on that point.


I have no idea what you're asking, but I'll sum it up.  In this context, the verse is a metaphor for determining good people by the works they do.  It's an example, not a literal statement.  The example is clearly a metaphor, since people don't actually burst into leaves and figs in response to what they do; in the same vein, the lesson is to be applied to everyone, not just those who claim to be prophets.

Jesus referred to your "neighbor" many times.  Treat your neighbor as yourself, be kind to them, etc.  That doesn't mean if someone lives too far away, you have the right to treat them badly!  In context, neighbor refers to everyone.

No, it was a legitimate question. I thought that was a point we can agree on.

I know it's important to you that the bible is in contradiction, but I'll take this as an agreement here that we agree on part of the bible.

I think it's been a couple of years, if not more since we agreed on something. :)

I was saying you feel it's a metaphor because the bible uses metaphors in other scripture, and that you feel that false prophet was not actually meant to refer to a false prophet, but a metaphor for any person.

But the word wasn't prophets. I know in english we read prophets in that sentence, but that's not the word originally used. It was "false prophets", or pseudoprophētēs. It could also have been translated to pretend foreteller, or religious imposter.


Note, there's no literal mention of people growing leaves or figs, it was talking of plants growing grapes and figs, not people growing grapes and figs.

I'm going to ask for some additional feedback from the other readers here please. I'm looking for someone not a part of this conversation on this and ask for an unbiased poster. This scripture seems really clear here, and I'm wondering why others can't see it.

Does it really look like people are literally bursting leaves and figs? Does this verse read like a metaphor?

I'd prefer someone not christian to look through this scripture and suggest this looks like a metaphor considering that prophets and teachers are recognized separately in the bible.

Matthew 7:15 “Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. 16 By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? 17 Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.

Yes, it does read like a metaphor.  The term "sheep's clothing" is an old metaphor; bad people do not literally dress up like sheep.

In reply to Trust in the Lord (msg # 138):

An interesting bit of scripture, actually, especially if we look at the whole chapter instead of just a few versus.

To answer the question, yes, there's a lot of metaphor in the verses TitL quotes.  But, no, I don't think Jesus was talking about everyone in those versus, just false prophets at TitL indicates.  The first few verses of the chapter tell people not to judge others, so it would be somewhat odd to contradict that just a few sentences later with "here's how you judge people..."

The verses directly following the ones TitL quote also have some bearing on the discussion, as they talk about 'false disciples':

Which I think is a good argument for scripture backing up a few that Phelp's wouldn't be saved.  But one that also comes down firmly on the "works" side of the "faith vs. works" debate.  Here Jesus is saying it's not what you believe it's what do that matters.  Only one that "does the will of my Father" will enter heaven.  "Does the will" describes actions, not faith, so it sounds like works are a necessary condition of entering heaven, according to Jesus.

Ok, disagree.

Because he is not following Jesus of the bible. So which Jesus is he following?






To be clear, you said Phelps was christian, and having belief in Christ is enough for salvation, Since Phelps believes, therefore, he is Christian.

Having salvation through faith doesn't mean your christian because you really believe you are christian.

The Jesus part. The actual Jesus is where I think Phelps is failing on. I understand Phelps claims Jesus, and uses the term baptist in his church name.


I get that. However, I took exception to the idea that it was the term christian way way back. You have altered the debate about salvation as the focus, when it was christian that I was making the exception I took.

 Don't really feel like going back to show you the original context that I countered. Seems like we don't agree.


If you get married, and then after the wedding go back to your single apartment, and keep dating people, and not visiting, helping, loving your spouse, well, you're still married, but you are not taking up your marriage for what it is. If you say you trust Jesus as your savior, but go back to your old life as if Jesus doesn't exist, it's just not a real relationship.


No, not a all? I'm not sure where we disagree on understanding your stance.



I agree that hell is bad. Not something that I want anyone to go through. So I let people know about God offering a gift. It's free, and available to everyone. Whenever you want. As a matter of fact, God will do a whole lot to try and keep us from going to hell. He sends people your way, let's you know about him, tries to help you depend on him, etc.

He's doing lots of stuff to keep you out of hell. But God respects free will. He's not going to force you to be not you.

Based on who's opinion? Should God force you to change who you are? Force you to love Him, even though you don't?

If you had a son, and he chose to leave you and never call, would you do what you can to keep a door open, and let him know you'll always accept him, but if he rejects you anyway, would you not allow him that choice?




Yea, I worded that incorrectly.

A non issue I think. I think I have established a reasonable amount of evidence to show that offending God is much worse than offending a regular person. As such, it does show that the punishment is greater based on who you are offending.

Well, in my case, it says specifically about the laws were for establishing the law, and that we are no longer under the law.

Appreciate the feedback. I wanted to make sure.



The verses directly following the ones TitL quote also have some bearing on the discussion, as they talk about 'false disciples':

Or, being a direct continuation about false prophets, and making sure that it speaks about how they prophesied in his name, but are evildoers, and will not be saved.

Um, no.  The second verse refers specifically to actions and works, not faith and belief.  Your argument is refuted.

Actually, I think it's about two different groups (false followers vs. false prophets), though that's not overly important to the heart of the matter. Notice that you described them as evildoers.  Evildoers.  Ones who do evil. That's describing actions.  It's about their works.  You didn't say "evilbelievers."

By the faith-alone doctrine, doing evil doesn't keep you out of heaven.  In fact, according to it, everyone is an evildoer.  Those who are really-really evil are equally deserving of hell as the most saintly person to have ever lived.  This verse seems to have Jesus saying that being an evildoer, ie taking lots of evil actions, can keep you of heaven, even if you believe in Jesus, and think you're doing it for him.  He seems to be coming down pretty firmly on the side of works in this verse.

I think I can understand TitL's point about being Christian vs. being saved. From my understanding, God is pretty forgiving about people who have the wrong information. However, definitions really aren't. So someone could have faith in an understanding of Jesus which is far too loose to make that person a Christian (for instance, perhaps he believes Jesus is actually a sasquatch). If this is as much Jesus as he was taught, or is capable of handling, Jesus will roll with that.

In the specific case of Phelps, I would argue that he does meet the strict definition of a Christian. He's just not a very good one. (But to be fair, Satan could be defined as a Christian as well, since he believes in Jesus Christ as the savior of humanity. Again, that doesn't speak poorly on the average Christian though.)

And then we have the outside perspective.

Since I don't believe in salvation or christianity, the distinction between an evildoer and an evil believer is meaningless.  I don't have to take the bible literally, or even accept any of Jesus's teachings at all.

From that perspective, I'm free to interpret that verse as a metaphor.  even if it literally says one thing, the thrust is slightly different, and so I can accept the gist of the teaching without needing to analyze it.

I would agree with you. If you're someone who doesn't believe the concept of Jesus being able to read your actual intentions and soul, the faith aspect of the discussion becomes irrelevant.

Someone posted this on facebook, but I thought it might be worth reposting here:


This message was last edited by the player at 05:14, Fri 24 Aug 2012.

John 6:28 Then they asked him, "What must we do to do the works God requires?"
John 6:29 Jesus answered, "The work of God is this; to believe in the one he has sent."

Another example where we see even Jesus saying you must believe in the one God sent, (Which is Jesus) That is the only works required for salvation, faith.

We see examples of this in the bible. Such as the thief crucified beside Jesus.
Luke 23:42 Then he said, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. 43 Jesus answered him, "I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise."

No works, but faith. The bible does mention about how people want works to determine their salvation. That they want to be judged by the law, that literally they want to earn their way to heaven. But no one is good enough.

Romans 3:19,20 19 Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. 20 Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin.

Romans 24-28  24 being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, 26 to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

27 Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? Of works? No, but by the law of faith. 28 Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law.

The law shows why you need Jesus. It is not there so that you can work harder for salvation. The jews, the people who believe works are needed, and do not believe in Jesus Christ, and many people of the world feel works are needed. But that is not where God's plan ends. It's only there to show people where they have done wrong.

Why else would works be important for? Does anyone feel that God will love you more if you work harder? Does God want you to work harder to meet him closer to heaven? Like meeting him half way so that Jesus didn't have to take up all of your sins?

Okay, can you be more specific?  Which of those three things do you think Phelps doesn't believe?  That Jesus is the Son of God?  That Jesus died for his sins?  That he (Phelps) is a sinner?  I think he believes all of those (and other kooky stuff), but you disagree.  Can you tell me which one he doesn't believe, in your opinion?




But "following" is works, right?  And works don't get you salvation, you're saying.  So it doesn't matter how good he is at following Jesus, as long as he has FAITH in Jesus.  And he uses the same bible you do (or close enough, we can quibble about which translation is the one Jesus wants you to use if you like, but that seems like another thread), so even if he's got kooky ideas about Jesus, it's still the same Jesus you believe in.



You're all over the place here.  I'm not saying Phelps is saved because he believes he's a christian.  I'm saying that according to the faith-alone doctrine, Phelps is saved because he believes Jesus is the son of God, and died for his sins.

I DO think that his beliefs are what make him a christian, but that's sort of tangential, and I see no need for us to debate it here.  What we're focussing on is salvation through faith.  Phelps has faith.  Not "faith that he's a christian" but faith that Jesus is the son of God and died for his sins.  According to the faith-alone doctrine, that's the faith that gets you salvation, so Phelps will be saved.



But believing incorrect stuff about Jesus doesn't matter to salvation, right?  The ONLY thing that matters is whether you accept that he is the son of God and that he died for your sins.  Everything else is details, as far as salvation is concerned.  You can believe that Jesus had purple hair and four arms if you want, as long as you accept that he's the son of God and died for your sins.  Phelps has that.  He has a lot of other stuff that I'm sure Jesus wouldn't approve of, but so does every christian. That's sort of part of the whole faith-alone doctrine--we're all EQUALLY horrible in God's eyes, and we all EQUALLY deserve an enternity in hell for being so sinful.  There's no degrees in it.  As far as God's concerned (according the faith-alone doctrine), mother Teresa is no better than Hitler in terms of their works.  They both deserve the absolute worst punishment in the universe.  But if either of them believe Jesus was the son of God, and died for their sins, then they get into heaven.  Doesn't matter how many poor people you helped, or how many jews you killed in the gas chambers, it's what you believe that matters.  Phelps is a nutter, but he ticks the only box that matters under the faith-alone doctrine--he believes that Jesus is the son of God and died for his sins.  Anything he does or says beyond that has no bearing on his salvation.


Maybe so, but that's the faith-alone doctrine.  The whole point of the faith alone doctrine is that no matter how bad a christian you are, no matter how miserable you are doing what Jesus says, no matter if you fail every single time, no matter if you lie, cheat, steal, yada yada yada, if at the end of the day you believe that Jesus is the son of God, and that he died for you Sins, you get saved.  Remember the guy who got crucified next to Jesus.  He didn't live a good life.  He didn't "follow Jesus" at all.  He just accepted Jesus' forgiveness just before he died.  That's the faith alone doctrine.  It's not "good people get into heaven," it's "there are no good people. ONLY bad people get into heaven, because we're all EQUALLY BAD.  Being good is nice, but it has nothing to do with getting into heaven."



Look at what you said, then look at what I said.  They're not the same.  You're talking about whether Phelps believes he is a christian.  I'm talking about whether he believes in Jesus.  You're saying "he's a christian, so he gets saved" I'm saying "he believes Jesus is the son of God, and accepts that Jesus died for his Sins."  You're trying to make it sounds like I'm saying "anyone to says they're a christian gets saved, no matter what they believe."  I'm trying to make it as simple as possible, and you keep trying to change my words away from that.  It's very easy:  the faith-alone doctrine says all that gets you into heaven is faith.  Phelps has faith.  Therefore, he gets saved.  It's that simple.  You're saying no, he's not saved, because look at how he doesn't follow Jesus!  Look at all the bad things he does and says!  But those are WORKS, not faith.  The "he can't get into heaven, he's a bad person!" argument is the WORKS-based position, not the FAITH based position that you're holding.  You're trying to have it both ways.  The downside to the faith-alone doctrine is that people you think really don't deserve to get into heaven can still get in.  Really unpleasant people, who do really unpleasant things (rape, murder, theft, you name it) still get into heaven, and to add insult to injury, God views us as no better than any of them.  That's what you get with the faith-alone doctrine.  If you're not comfortable with that, then you don't really hold to the faith-alone doctrine, or at least haven't thought through the implications fully.


But HE is going to make people go to hell if they don't toe the line, right?  If they don't believe the right thing, He'll send them to this place, so bad, that it's worse than anything we can imagine.  That's not "letting you be you," it's "inflicting mindblowing torture for eternity on you for being you."  It's like pointing a gun at your wife, and saying "hey, just to let you know, I'm going to shoot her if you don't do what I want right now.  I'm not forcing you, it's your choice and all, but I've got this gun, and I fully intend to use it.  I'm not trying to take away your free will, but do what I say or else, got it?"  He's not being 'nice' by giving us a way out, he's being sadistic by considering Hell an option for us in the first place.



No, he shouldn't punishment with something worse that torture for being me.  Good people don't try to get their way by threatening people with torture for not acting as you want them to.


Yes.  And capturing him, and inflicting the most horrific torture I could come up with would not be "letting him make that choice."  It'd be just the opposite.  It'd be trying to force him to make the choice I wanted him to make but threatening him with horrible, sadistic punishment if he didn't do what I told him to.


Actually, you haven't shown any evidence of this.  You've asserted it, but you've given no evidence or reason of why it should be the case.  I disagree with it.  Punching a child in the face is worse than punching a boxer in the face, even though the boxer is 'greater' in someways.  Nothing we do can harm God in anyway.  We can't hurt Him.  We can't even change Him at all.  And we can't learn from the punishment, so there's no benefit from sending people to hell.  It's pure sadism.  It serves no purpose, other than possibly revenge.  Again, it's not what a good being would do.



Sounds like your only concern is about being more right than Phelps, and not about whether its possible that you're wrong about anything.  You and I can agree that Phelps' interpretation of the bible is kooky.  That's not really the point.  God doesn't kick you out of heaven for that (according to the faith alone doctrine).  You're also convince every interpretation you've ever made of the bible is correct, but again, that's not important.  I think you've probably made some errors (you're just a human, and there's lots of stuff in the bible, afterall), but according the faith alone doctrine, that's not going to keep you out of heaven.  I think your errors are, under the faith alone doctrine, no worse nor no better than Phelps.  By the faith alone doctrine, you both get a passing grade, and nothing else.  In God's view you're both absolutely horrible sinners, the worst of the worst, and deserve to be tortured for eternity...but since you both believe in Jesus, you both get into heaven.  Tycho thinks TitL is way less crazy than Phelps, but Tycho's opinion doesn't carry any weight in heaven.  Neither does TitL's, or Phelps'.  It's a one-question test, and you both pass.  None of the other differences between you matter one iota to the faith alone doctrine.

Moving this away from the OOC thread per mod request.

Compared to his previous posts in this thread and elsewhere, does everyone else see the contradiction here?

Yes, Lard and Lord sound similar.  I know I made a joke about seaponies in the example code I gave you but let's try to follow Tycho's advice and cut back on the subtle jabs at one another.

And yes, I see the contradiction, but it's less of a contradiction using TITL's definition of Good.

In which case it's less of a contradiction and more of a bait and switch. The argument is much like the Race Realist's way of making their statement that "Whites are superior to Asians and Blacks" sound superficially more appealing by saying "On Average Asians have higher intelligence than Whites, but Whites have more Geniuses".

I think "Half-Truth" or "contextual Lie" might be the term I'm looking for.

Of course, Titl's definition of "good" doesn't stand up under biblical scrutiny either.  The same passage from Romans he likes to cite includes the phrase: "All have sinned, and fallen short of the glory of god."  This doesn't mean no human is good, but rather that all humans have committed sin.  Since the bible is full of good people (who, by this verse, are also sinners), it's safe to conclude that his definition also is not biblically supported.

Are they called good, or righteous?  One might make the same distinction between the two as between sinner and not good.

Meh, yes and no.  I see what you're saying, but I also see what he's saying.  On one level it's technically a contradiction, but his intended meaning is that no one is good, so the only way to get to heaven is faith, which is consistent with what he's said.  So yes, saying "the ONLY way to get to heaven is faith," and then saying "there are two ways to get to heaven, be good, or have faith," is a contradiction.  But since he's saying "oh, and no one is good, so you have to have faith to get to heaven" sort of deals with the contradiction.  It'd have been more honest to just say "you can't get to heaven by being good because no one can be good," I guess, but what he means is fairly clear.

I'd also say the "no one is good enough to get into heaven" is pretty consistent with the common interpretations of the bible.  Yes, "good enough" means "perfect" in this case, but again that's not a contradiction so much, as just a standard so strict as to be not a standard at all.

Basically all of this disagreement could have been avoided if instead of "good people can get into heaven" TitL had just said "no one is good enough to get into heaven," I think.  It seems a bit of a red herring to me, to chase after a technical contradiction, rather that focusing on the implications of his position.  I find Dolous' comments about what it tells us about God that He would create a system where He knew people would be tortured for eternity much more interesting than any debate about whether or not TitL said two things that contradict.  I mean, even if you convince TitL that his statements are contradictory, all that will come of it is him saying "oh, okay, then no, good people don't go to heaven without faith," or "oh, okay, technically it's not faith alone, it's just faith alone for anyone who's not perfect."  And you'll have argued back and forth for five pages without changing anyone's views about anything of real substance.

Neither.  It's sinners, according the the verse cited.  Now, you can easily be a sinner and good, which is what the problem is.

No I mean the good people you're referring to in the Bible, does the Bible call them good or Rightous; the only one I can think of wasn't referred to as Good, at least not that I can remember.  Lot was a Rightous Man, etc.

The Good Samaritan comes immediately to mind.  Definitely "good" and not "righteous", even though he's a parable.

TitL, could you please define "good" for me? What is a "good person".

Good is defined by God. A good person is one who is without sin.

So there have been, what, two good people in all of creation?

I prefer to say that actions are good or evil (or neutral), and that people are neither good nor evil. A good action is one which is based in love of God or love of humanity, and an evil action is based in harm. (A neutral action is one which does neither, like choosing what color to paint your house.) We tend to rank some actions as 'more good' or 'more evil' than others, while also recognizing that one action can include both good and evil, and also that one can perform good or evil acts without intending to.

Judging a person as good or evil based on their past actions is what I believe the biblical injunction against judging is referring to. Only God knows the entirety of a person's actions and intentions and whether their evil acts have been forgiven.

Another backpedal.  Do you actually have a citation for this?  As I said, I can think of a couple of people off the top of my head who were considered good without being sin-free.

Well, that's one more than what the bible says.

Mark 10:18 “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone. 19 You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, you shall not defraud, honor your father and mother.



Yea, but according to God, if you break one law, you are guilty of breaking them all.

James 2:10 For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it. 11 For he who said, “You shall not commit adultery,” also said, “You shall not murder.” If you do not commit adultery but do commit murder, you have become a lawbreaker.

I get you feel this has gone unanswered, but I think you may have missed some important posts from the original discussion.

Science and I were discussing what makes a person good, and if judged by God's standards, such as using the ten commandments as we were, we all fail at being good.

Also, Doulos pointed out the scenario and how it did not need to be in contradiction, and I pointed out that is exactly the point.

It really made no sense to me to continue the debate after we discussed what is good by God's standards, plus that I explained why there was no contradiction.

The two I am referring to are Jesus and his mother Mary.

So, in the end you're saying there is only one good person (Jesus)?

To go off the Catholic theology, intelligent creatures are (presumably) a blank slate. Humans, however, all have original sin, and so from conception are in the negative. And because the smallest sin weighs as much as the heaviest in the eyes of God, original sin is enough to preclude you from heaven. I don't believe the Catholic theology really speaks to intelligent creatures who are not humans, but it's been explored in debates and literature, with a few different answers. For this discussion, I believe we're speaking ONLY of humans.

Within that, there is a period where someone can get back to that no-sin state; baptism. If you're an adult being baptised, obviously that's an act of faith, but for an infant, it's not. So an infant who has just been baptised can go to heaven by being 'good' (although this is still closely tied with faith, so it's sort of a cheap answer).

Again, according to Catholic theology, Mary was born without original sin, never felt tempted to commit sin, and never did commit any sins. She got to heaven by virtue of being good.

Adam and Eve were born without original sin, and had the option of getting to heaven, but obviously fell. While the bible implies Adam and Eve had no contemporaries, it doesn't say so explicitly, so it's feasible that other humans did not fall with A&E, and got to heaven by virtue of being good. The cop-out here is that it's not totally clear that the same rules applied at that time. Jesus opened the gates of heaven, and before that, all the good Jews would just sort of hang out outside and smoke cigarettes. We're never told what happened to good people before there were Judiasm. So maybe heaven was never an option for A&E in the first place; they'd just go to where-ever hairy proto-people go (Wal-Mart, by the looks of some customers there).

So with all of that, to me, TitL's comments seem broadly true, but technically inaccurate. It's like saying 'cars don't go faster than the speed of sound'. There are some exceptions to that rule, but they're hardly worth mentioning.

Also, TitL is likely coming from a more Protestant framework that would reject the idea that Mary was born without sin.

Also, a more conservative viewpoint which would reject the idea that Adam and Eve had contemporaries who could have maintained a sinless state.

So it would rule out a few of the caveats you've mentioned.

EDIT:  Interesting to note, even the most conservative folks seem to leave room for children of a certain age to gain salvation by default, which throws the whole thing into complete chaos ;)
This message was last edited by the player at 17:34, Thu 08 Nov 2012.

Just going by the bible here. Mary is not mentioned at being sinless, though Jesus mentions all have sinned.

So Mary, according to the bible would have sinned.

By Jesus's statement, he sinned too. If Jesus sinned, he can't be God and can't be in a place to help other sinners. How do you deal with that?

Two things, who is the only who didn't sin? And What sin did Jesus commit?

The first response would be God, who Jesus claimed to be. And we already know it says Jesus was sinless. More so, sin is something that goes against God's commands. How could Jesus goes against Himself.

1 Peter 2:22 “He committed no sin,
    and no deceit was found in his mouth.”

1 John 3: 5 But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in him is no sin.

John 8:46 Can any of you prove me guilty of sin? If I am telling the truth, why don’t you believe me?

Most protestants do not agree that Jesus said he had sinned.

It makes no sense to continue the debate when you've lost.  You didn't explain the contradiction, you relied on Doulos to try and shift the goalposts for you.

Fact is, there are many people considered good in the bible who are not jesus.  Solomon, David, Ruth, Esther, Moses, the list goes on and on.  So, you continue to contradict yourself.

But good enough to go to heaven? Also, all of those people were followers of God :) That's sort of TitL's point. "You cured cancer? Oh, sorry, you're still a filthy sinner. Oh, you trust God will care for you? Okay, everything's forgiven, welcome to heaven!"

Actually, that's the opposite of what he's been saying recently.

I don't know why you're getting that interpretation. I was a little confused initially about what is a 'good person', but when I asked, TitL and TitL clarified how he was using that term; it's someone without sin. Sure there are people who are considered good in that they do nice things for other people, but they aren't good, i.e. sinless, which was the definition TitL has been using and explicitly stated.

If you prefer they were good, just not good enough.

Because the bible is full of people who were good enough to get to heaven while not being "saved".  Virtually everyone in the old testament, for example.  I can't recall if it was Elijah who actually went to heaven or if it was another prophet, but the point is that works are not just necessary, they are sufficient.  It's not just the main thing, it's the only thing.

Romans 4 is pointed to by Christians as evidence that folks in the OT were still saved by faith, and not by goodness.

Considering even the Jews don't believe they go straight to heaven after death, that would seem to be a stretch, don't you think?

You're actually somewhat wrong on that one.  Jews have no concept of hell, that's a pagan add on.  Heaven was visited and described by one of the prophets (I want to say Elijah) while watching another prophet go there.

I'm not sure of the nuances that you are getting at Grandmaster, but my understanding is that Katisara is correct in that the bulk of the Jewish eschatological beliefs included a bodily resurrection in a 'world to come', but only after some time had passed.

So they would not go "immediately to heaven".

Even Classical Christianity does not teach that you go straight to heaven when you die, despite what popular evangelical fiction books would have you believe.

EDIT:  I read 'no concept of heaven' at first - oops.  Yeah they don't believe in hell as far as I understand it, but rather the idea of a punishment in the 'world to come' - though certainly not an eternal one.
This message was last edited by the player at 20:05, Fri 09 Nov 2012.

That's also incorrect, although it does depend heavily on what you consider "classical christianity" to be.  Catholicism teaches the concept of purgatory, but original christianity does not.

The Catholics would call themselves 'original christianity' ;)

I was referring to the more Protestant version though yes.  But again, purgatory and heaven are different things even in Cahtolicism.

Okay, Solomon was good, let's go over why you think he was good.

Let's go over them one at a time, and see what scripture has on this.

Why?  So you can weasel out of the contradiction?

They were sinners, and they were considered good.  I don't need any more proof than that.  You now need to prove that they were evil to counter the point.